So I Met John Porter
by KiplingKat
Summary: Response to a fanfic challenge: What would happen if "I" met John Porter of "Strike Back" & to develop John's relationship with his daughter. Warning: Last chapters contain adult content.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimers: _

_A. Don't own John Porter or the Strike back - verse, not making any money off this, and have severe doubts anyone could. _

_B. This story was written as a great conceit. I believe strongly in the rule of fanfic that reads: "No one gives a crap about your Mary Sue." But we were presented with a challenge on the IMDB Richard Armitage board: "You'll Never Guess Who I Ran Into…" in which "we can imagine what it would be like to bump into one of RA's characters and what occurs." So I came up with this story and a couple others, and have decided to move them here so they do not get lost. I beg forgiveness, and hope that readers can use my Mary Sue as a lens through which to get to know these characters better. _

_C. The final chapters of this have some moments of explicit sexuality. If that makes you uncomfortable, I have also posted a less explicit version (along with the Alec Track and Ricky Deming stories, as well as a couple original pieces) on Wattpad under the same sign on: "KiplingKat"._

Part I

-July 2010-

Happy coincidences in life are few and far between and one should grab hold of them when one can. So it was I found myself in Freeport, Grand Bahama, weaving my way through the folks loading cargo up the gangplank to my old ship, sturdy white-hulled 135 foot brigantine with plenty of mileage on her and plenty of love in her. Everything was where I remembered, only it newly painted and polished with fresher ropes and, hopefully, a couple new sails. Even the dark teak deck has been sanded and newly stained and sealed. The SSV _John Paul Jones_ just had a complete overhaul, and before she went home for another year cruising college students up and down the eastern seaboard and Caribbean, one of my Greenwich instructors was doing a bit of foreign exchange by taking her on a trial cruise (and the a little free advertisement) with the Tall Ship Challenge around the Caribbean. As part of a good will tour, various ships in the fleet are also carrying supplies to Haiti.

I weave my way around the pallets and firemen lines of loaders. I'm about to stick my head in the Doghouse where the radar, GPS, radio, and other equipment are housed to report to someone when a hand covers my eyes.

"No pin diagram. Name the braces in order from aft."

"Course, Top sail." But I'm all grins, "Hey Kev!"

"Hey K-Dawg" as the tall skinny younger man envelops me in a spider-like hug. "You look great!'

"And so do you, clean shaven. How will I cope?" I reach up to rub the stubble covered head a that usually sports untamable brown curls.

"Give it a week."

Kevin and I catch up as he walks me to my berth forward, threading our way around another fire line stowing supplies in the focs'l cargo hatch in the floor of the sleeping quarters. "…And of course, you remember the zero gravity chamber." Referring to the sometimes rough ride in the focs'l of the ship that can result in brief moments of free fall.

"Honestly, it's better than being in the main cabin with all the traffic. Oh hey! I get the top bunk this time! Yay!" I toss my gear in the bunk.

"Yeah, Lauren is the steward, so she's bunking by the galley."

"Seriously? Oh this will be a blast." I say, hopping up on the ledge in front of my bunk, "This is better, I get a direct shot across the ladder at you. I can just chuck something at you to wake you up."

"Actually, I'm second mate this trip so I'm bunking aft."

"You made second? That's awesome!" I hop down to give him a big hug.

"Thanks, but you can be wake up buddies with your watch mate. She's probably on deck with everyone else loading cargo."

"Speaking of which I should pitch in a hand. Which watch am I on?" I ask as we ascend the ladder to the foredeck.

"Mine. Behave yourself."

"They stuck you with me again? Your poor soul."

"I remember last time, you're good crew."

"You're sweet. I'll try not to lean on you too much while I relearn the ropes."

"Just don't release the mainstays'l outhauls without checking the tension first"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." But I blush at remembering almost taking the captain's head off on my first cruise because I released them too quickly. With the sails deployed, lines on a ship can be under hundreds to thousands of pounds of tension. Untying them quickly without checking to see if they are under tension can result in rope burns or worse.

My watch is stowing boxes of medical supplies amidships, starting with the empty bunks lining the main cabin where meals are served and the working our way upward to the wetlab, which for the most part of this trip will be in repose beyond a couple test runs of the new equipment. I'm also pleased to see in addition to Lauren and Kevin, another of my old classmates is on board: Rene, a tiny dark haired waif of poise and literary knowledge who is on my watch. The other members of B-Watch are the bean pole William, a very interesting and swell classmate of mine at Greenwich, Gary, a short stocky recent graduate of the program, and Alex, a slender somewhat sulky blonde teen in jeans, a tank top emblazoned with a band logo, and too much make up (which on ship is any). It turns out Alex is also English, which I do not realize for a couple hours until she finally opens her mouth to say more than two words.

And those are, "You don't have to hover over me! I'm 17 for chrissakes."

There a deep rumbling voice that follows, but it pitched low so I can't decipher it.

"I was just taking a breather! Is that all that matters, that I don't embarrass you in front of your friend!"

"That not what I meant..." the baritone growl picks up volume as it picks up exasperation.

"That's what you said!"

"Hey! The argument is holding up stowing more than she was!" I shout from inside the lab. As I lash down the first stack of boxes, the door is filled briefly by someone very tall who I assume glares at me and then vanishes. "Alex, get in here and help me with these. Here," I toss her a roll of duct tape, "Tape that stack together while I tie these down."

"Yeah, sure."

There is nothing but the sound of ripping duct tape for a while.

"I knew this was a stupid idea. Wanker." she mutters.

_Oh boy. Here we go._ "Your Dad?" I respond neutrally.

"The loser isn't around when I am growing up, isn't around when Mum dies, and now all of a sudden he wants to spend time with me." she says sarcastically, "Only instead of fun trip to Jamaica, he's ordering me around like I'm one of his fucking soldiers….Sorry."

"We're going to sea, you think I have a problem with salty language? I would watch it in front of the Captain, however."

"D'you reckon?" _Was I made of that much snark at that age? Probably._

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother. How long ago was it?"

"March." _Still freshly grieving._

"What happened?"

"Cancer, she went into have a tumor removed and there were complications." The reply is automatic, she answered this question so many times that gateway to her grief has become smooth and polished.

"Your Dad is in the military?"

"Uh...Was. Army, yeah." she replies vaguely.

"Well, my Dad was in the Navy. And it may be that since your Dad has not spent much time with you up until now, is not used to you, he's falling back on comfortable patterns, how he relates to other people. Not saying it's right and I'm not saying that is what he is doing, just throwing it out there for consideration. I don't know the situation with your family, but what I do is that my father died before he and I had chance to settle things out." That seems to strike a chord, probably because of her mother. "And people taking this kind of time to be with their family? Even if it is a day late and dollar short, it's better than nothing. Plus, you are not going to be able to get further than 135 feet from him for a week at a time, so my suggestion is you both cut each other some slack or this trip is really going to be hell." _For everyone around you especially._

"Seems that way already." She grumbles, ripping off another length of duct tape.

"So you got roped into drudge work, just wait 'till field day and you're scrubbing the floors."

"The floors? Fuck! Is there *anything* fun about this?"

I stop and lean over the lab counter. "Loads. You are about to do things you have not before and see things you have not before, and that's all before you get to the Islands. Have they talked about your duties yet?"

Alex and I talk about what I have experienced and what she is about to. After a few minutes, she sounds a little less sulky and a little more intrigued. _*whew*_

After we finish stowing the cargo, our watch is off until the evening. Alex darts onshore with couple other shipmates to make last minute phone calls and Facebook entries at the nearby internet cafe before we cast off.

"ALEX! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" I hear her father roar from the quarter deck. _Oh jeezus._ I'm thinking about pulling Dr. Randall aside to point out that people did not sign up for this trip to play family counselor and could he please have a word with his friend, when I see my instructor has beaten me to the punch.

The silver haired former Royal Navy captain, slowly yielding to the stoutness of age, has pulled aside a younger, tall, dark-haired man who would be considered lanky if not for the significant breadth of muscular shoulder and back beneath the ratty black T-shirt and dark blue cargo pants. A quick murmured conference has Alex' father nodding in acknowledgment a few times. He pats Dr. Randall on the arm as he turns to enter the doghouse and we catch each other's eyes. Or I think we do. Since he is wearing a pair of sunglasses I have only the slight pause as he looks my way to go by. Not only does he look nothing like his daughter beyond both being tall and leaning toward slenderness, he is younger than I expected. Certainly no older than I in my late 30's. His straight dark brown hair is fairly short, what length there is on top swept back simply. The sharp features carved out of the soft length of his face give him an inherently penetrating look, like a hawk. An impression that is compounded by an intensity in his physicality. Despite his loose and easy movement there is something deliberate and tautly coiled in him so that instead of a glance that slides over me as he ducks into the doghouse, I am left with the feeling that I have been recorded and cataloged for future reference.

I greet Dr. Randall, now Captain once again, with a handshake and discuss the paradox of his commanding a vessel called the John Paul Jones and how he is finding her. The ship was built specifically to be a teaching vessel, so rather than a sleek thoroughbred she's a workhorse, but she can still get a decent 13 knots out of the two raked masts on a good day and sometimes can skip lively through the swell. With her hull freshly cleaned of weed and barnacles, the Captain and I are very interested to see how she performs.

"So...who was that?" I segue artlessly, gesturing toward the doghouse.

"John? An old friend. When I came up shy an engineer I called him. He's brilliant with anything mechanical, but this is his first time working the engine on a ship, so any assistance anyone can give the lad would be helpful."

"Uhm, sure." Changing the fuel filter on my car is the height of my mechanical skill. "I'm surprised you couldn't find someone with more experience. But I suppose they're all busy between this and the Tall Ship Races in the Med."

Randall pauses a moment, "Well…Not to go beyond the deck here. I didn't look very hard. Coming out of maintenance, I didn't expect any serious trouble and John's had a rough time of it lately. With his daughter leaving home I thought it was best if he got away from work and had some time to spend with her. You've met Alexandra, yes? She's on your watch, bunking forward with you."

I nod with a sinking feeling as to what is coming.

"You remember what it is like at that age, if you could keep an eye on her…"

_Oh, for the love of…_"Sure." This happened last time, the automatic assumption that because I was older I was the responsible one. _Oi vey._

Well, I remember exactly what it was like to be that age and at that point I resolve beyond helping Alex learn how to sail a ship without setting it on fire or getting herself killed, I'm not going to watch over her in the slightest. Learning to sail is going to take up most of her time and energy at first and she already proven she, like any teen, resents hovering. If there is one thing that girl does not need it is someone trying to take one parent's place while she is busy being resentful against the other parent. That is one sticky mess I do not want to get involved in.

The first watch handles casting off so Rene and I chat in the bow while we watch the emerald stretch of coast line slip by and behind us in the breeze. Two other ships in the fleet have cast off as well, and we follow them out into the harbor making Aubrey - Maturin jokes about taking prizes. Rene is brilliant. The only person on board last time I could sit down and really hash out literature with and learn something from, and on my best day I will never be able to match her easy going poise and inherent "cool".

After we get out to sea, I duck below to check in with the galley to see if they need any help. My cast iron stomach can handle being in a confined space below deck as people with motion sickness are getting their sea legs and tossing their cookies over the side, so I usually end up spending a lot of time there the first day or so. But the member of A-Watch assigned to the galley that day seems to be holding out and Lauren has him well in hand, so with promises to catch up with her later I walk back through the main cabin to the aft ladder up to the dog house. As I reach it, I literally bump into John in the narrow corridor as he leaves the engine room.

After mumbling apologies, there is an awkward pause. Complimenting the sharply defined nose and narrow, delicately chiseled lips, his eyes are pale, deep set, and almond shaped. With start I realize I am trying to figure out exactly what color they are in the sunlight shafting down the ladder, so I decide to push things along by sticking my hand out.

"_Kip_."

"John." He takes my hand briefly, long fingers wrapping around my palm.

"...Heading up?"

His mouth begins to tilt to one side, "After you."

I'm half way up before I realize what the smirk meant and look over my shoulder to find John standing at the foot of the ladder, clearly enjoying the view. _You have *got* to be kidding me._

"Buddy, not even on your best day." I say, before racing up the last steps into the doghouse.

He didn't even look slightly abashed.

Stupid jerk.

The next couple days are spent getting back into the rhythm of things, becoming one with our shoulder safety harness (which one wears constantly when on duty), baseball caps, and sun block as well as the various duties on watch. Each member of the on-deck watch takes the turn at the wheel for an hour, or goes on an hourly inspection of the ship recording the temperature and pressure gauges in the engine room and galley to make sure we are not quietly on fire somewhere and the food stays unharmed. They then record this information with our heading, speed, and weather conditions in the hourly log. One person each watch is assigned to the galley for the entire shift to assist with meals or clean up.

At night, there are also hour long shifts as bow and stern lookouts, keeping an eye on other ship traffic so as not to run afoul of anyone else. Given that we are in the middle of the Tall Ship fleet in the middle of the cruise-popular Caribbean, it is not uncommon to see the lone lights like small bobbing stars on the tops of the masts of one of our sister ships, or the small floating cities of a cruise ship at a distance in the dark. More rare are big ghosts of lights outlining the huge shapes of container ships and tankers. As is cautionary and customary, ships give each other a wide berth of at least a mile. But the amount of traffic in the area means we are frequently checking the radar and on the radio making passing arrangements with other ships in the wide, deep night. In order to keep our night vision, the deck is unlit save for the interior lights of the doghouse and the focs'l, which are red.

We are also relearning the ropes. Literally. Even on a ship as small as the _Jones_, it takes experience to learn which lines to grab when putting up which sails. Which ropes should be hung up or tied off when a sail is not in use, which should be coiled on deck when sail is out. The first couple days Will, Alex, Rene, and I spend a lot of time with the pin diagram, a map of the various lines and sheets, in our hands while Kevin and Nathan patiently point out to us and re-point out to us what we should be hauling on as the dark blue waves roll under us. By the third day, Rene and I have completely re-mastered the rigging with Will, who had sailed on other student vessels, picking things up quickly.

"SET THE MAIN STAYSIL!" Despite making second mate, Kevin has still not developed an authoritative "sail handling voice", his calls coming out in panicked-seeming tearing cry like the world is coming to an end. In a girl it would be a shriek. I love Kevin like a brother, but whenever he calls sail, I can't help but wince away from him.

"I can help you with that." I say from the wheel.

"I know you can. Shut up." But he smiles.

The Captain's reaction to Kevin is interesting to watch. The Captain coming from military discipline and Kevin coming from kid summer camps. Kevin leads his watch with a extremely light touch, encouraging team work through laughter, competitive pride, and example. And though I can see Dr. Randall opening his mouth a few times, he doesn't actually say anything because he sees that it works.

Alex is struggling, though with surprising patience for an angsty teen which earns her more respect than she realizes. After her first 01:00 am watch call she has given up the mascara. The mandatory three days between fresh water showers has forced her hair into bandannas and baseball caps, revealing a fresh faced young girl on the cusp of womanhood, but only just. She honestly is trying, but she is at a disadvantage not only from her complete lack of experience but from the lack of classroom knowledge that the rest of us first walked onto a ship with. The physics of sailing, the forces on the hull, the aerodynamics of the sails, center of force, not to mention weather conditions, and mapping. So in the meantime she is merely doing what she is told to do and has to slowly pick up the "why" piecemeal as the rest of the watch has time to explain to her. But she seems to soldier through, her adolescence only cracking though occasionally. Once when the regulation hourly tour of inspection she was sent on lasted 40 minutes while she was chatting with a rather attractive young man on C Watch, and of course every time she has to deal with her father.

John has clearly timed his sleep schedule to our watch but with freshly tuned engines and good breezes, he has more time on his hands than he knows what to do with. So it becomes common to start hauling away on a rope only to find a large pair of hands reaching above yours to yank downward with surprising strength.

Yeah, you try not noticing man's chest and biceps when they are under rhythmic strain not six inches from your nose.

After one smug leer from his sky blue eyes, I convince myself I would have noticed the Pope's biceps under those conditions.

But that only happens once with Alex during the first early morning watch before there is another shouting match forward. The sound is akin to a bear and a wild cat going at it and Kevin freezes. Sailing in squalls? No problem. Getting into the middle of a family squabble? Even the doughiest salts shall pale. Fortunately, I'm too stupid to know better and catapult myself forward in the pitch black, calling on my own sail handling voice.

"E-NOUGH!"

When I use that voice to tell my dog to "SIT!", grown men within earshot sit down.

It works, and after quietly haranguing them about the people sleeping beneath their feet, I send Alex forward to relieve Rene at the bow lookout. I would tell John to get lost, but his tall shape has already vanished silently in the dark.

As Rene and I walk back to the quarterdeck, I ask what happened since she was the only one forward.

"I don't know. It went from, "I can do it myself" to "do you really think this will make up for not being there..." screaming and just loads of _Le Drama_." I can practically hear her eyes rolling in the dark.

I sigh. I respect the captain as a gentleman and a scholar and adore him like a father, so I refrain from voicing the _"what the hell was he thinking?"_ sentiment out loud. "You know usually the nice thing about being at sea is getting away from all that."

"Yeah, but it's always waiting for you when you get home isn't it?" she rejoins, "They just brought it with them. So did you, remember?"

I wince accordingly. "Yeah I did. But I did not turn the ship into a steel cage death match."

"Thanks _Kip_." Kevin says as we report in on the quarter deck.

"De nada." I shrug it off.

"Did you get to see if the fisherman halyard was coiled on deck? That's what I sent Alex forward to do."

I head forward again to the bow where I find a rope half coiled on the deck, but it's the wrong rope. There is another hanging loosely, which is also the wrong rope.

The source of the fight being neither one of them knows what the hell they are doing.

As I re-hang the jib sheet and the course halyard and coil the fisherman halyard on the deck so that it runs freely when we take the sail in, I decide that despite my best intentions to not be a mentor, someone has to take Alex in hand.

At least as far as sailing goes.

"Alex?"

The slender shape leaning against the forestay moves, but does not answer.

"You cool?"

"…Everyone on board is going to know about that aren't they?"

"By breakfast."

"Shit."

"Yup." She just curses again so I continue. "Look, Alex, that can't happen again. Period. When it stops you from doing your work it potentially puts the entire ship at risk. If we hit heavy weather and we have to take these sails in an instant, no one is going to have time to deal with your personal drama with your Dad. If off shift you guys want to go in the engine room and shut the door and scream at each other, go for it. But not up here."

"…He just needs to stay out of my space." She says sulkily.

"He's been in Rene's space, he's been in Nathan's space. This is a 135 foot ship. Everyone is in everyone's space. You've seen me and Kevin help out other watches when we're just hanging out on deck. Maybe this isn't so much about you but the fact that A. Everyone pitches in to help where it is needed and B. Your Dad is bored."

That just makes her more sulky. "Figures."

"What's that?" I point to a set of red lights on the horizon to port.

"…Oh shit!"

"Yeah, you see why you can't let personal crap interfere with what you are doing? Go run back and tell the quarter deck. I'll take your place."

As I clip my harness into the forestay, out of the corner of my eye I catch a sight of John slipping from behind one of the life rafts cases into the light from the foc'sl hatch as he goes below.

After that night B Watch is not on again until the following evening, so the next morning I climb out onto the head rig and enjoy the ride. The head rig is where all the stays and netting attach to the bowsprit. It is my favorite part of the ship, hanging out over the water as the motion of the swell smoothly tosses you up and down and about with the hull. You can really get a sense of the boat and the life in her. As I said, John Paul Jones is a workhorse, but she's a lively one that enjoys a good steady gallop. The best place to really feel it is riding the bowsprit itself, the long mast jutting forward horizontally from the bow. From that vantage point there is nothing in front of you or if you look back, the slight curvature of the deck means you can see the entire ship back to the quarterdeck.

Of course, to really enjoy it you have to ignore the sexual imagery inherent in a woman straddling a big long pole which most of the time you can do…unless someone is ogling you in amusement from the foremast.

Like John is.

I'm getting my retort ready for whatever salacious comment he is about to make when Alex comes forward from the opposite side and looks over bow at the netting. John's smirk completely collapses as I advise Alex how to climb out onto the netting and up on the bowsprit.

Somehow I manage not to fall off laughing as he stomps aft.

"What? What so funny?" Alex asks, having missed her father's presence entirely.

"Nothing, nothing." I manage to bring myself under control. "O.K. so looking back on the ship, you see the angle of the deck to the water? That is her "Heel", how much the wind is acting on the sails sideways…"

Over the next few days, Alex gets a crash course in the physics of sailing and to my pleasant surprise, she is a quick learner. Despite her teenage angst, there is a core of common sense in her that when presented with a "Why", the puzzle of "How" falls into place. So much so that within a week, she is making reasonable guesses which sails would be best to use to catch the current wind. I belatedly realize how much understanding the world she has been thrust into helps her relax and enjoy it more.

What also helps is John has backed off completely, his time taken up in the engine room nursing a cantankerous water desalinization system. At least that is what I divine from the one time I entered the engine room to an extremely imaginative string of growled profanity from the engine compartment below. Or so I think he has completely backed off until a couple nights later as Alex is taking her first unsupervised spell at the wheel. As I go to the compass to record the heading I glance down the open skylight into the captain's cabin to see John looking up at me in the red light. He places a finger to his lips.

"Alex, mark your heading." I say.

"85 degrees."

"Dead on the money. Awesome," I say down at "my clipboard". I'm rewarded with a proud smile before I go on my way.

Mealtimes are still a bit tense. John sticks close to the Captain at one table shoveling food in and talking about the ship, old comrades, old actions, new equipment, and the military's role in the geopolitical scheme of things, how _so-and-so_ screwed up in _thus-and-such_ a place and who should be stationed where. Alex sits at the other table talking with shipmates closer to her own age about movies and music, and political philosophy diametrically opposed to her father's. Particularly the use of military force, one time flogging the civilian casualty rate in Afghanistan to the point she drove John from the table.

But that moment was not so bad the one that came every meal time when John would watch her sit on the opposite side of the room. The moment was fleeting, just a flash of expression in the eyes as if he is watching someone on the opposite side of the Grand Canyon with no way across.


	2. Chapter 2

Part II

After a few days, the crew has settled into their routines to the point people can have a little more fun, starting with Kevin's "Modern Shanty Contest" to replace the traditional 19th century working songs that provide the coordinating rhythm to large groups of people hauling lines like the mainsail halyard or the braces. "Bad Romance" (Alex' contribution) is a little too fast, but "Before He Cheats" (mine) works well. "I Love Rock n' Roll" (Will) left up for debate. The entire process has the captain vacillating between horror and hysterics as he stands behind the wheel with a customary military rigidity too long used to be shed now, in old uniform slacks and loud Hawaiian shirt which I take to be his celebration of civilian sailing. Off duty folks start hanging out in scattered little gatherings on deck or on the rack above the winch where the lumpy bundles of sails provides an ideal place for lounging. At meals the groups become more fluid as people start to mingle between watches.

I tend to stick close to the Captain to pick his brain for nautical knowledge in general as well as Naval history, the lack of attention given to both the Royal Navy's history, as well as the developing naval forces of the Commonwealth Nations, in this region of the world being of concern to us both. He keeps hinting heavily there's a doctorate in it for me. I keep hinting heavily back that I really want to return to the Ancient Mediterranean at some point. That was what I got into Naval History to study after all.

"So how did you end up with Greg here?" John asks me over the remnants of dinner one night, probably desperate to drag the conversation out of the dry pages of historiography.

To which I relate how I got drawn into studying the history of the Royal Navy by accident. "One of my classmates had taken the Naval History course the semester…term before I did and she had done her term paper and presentation on…"

"Oh God." The Captain winces, having heard this story before.

"…_"The Frequency and Recurrence of Sodomy and Bestiality on Royal Naval Vessels of the Napoleonic Wars"_ which in the department was popularly known as the "Buggery in the British Navy Paper.""

At "sodomy" John has started to choke. By "buggery" he is chortling is the most remarkably adorable manner.

"Like you lot were much better…Regulation brothels," The Captain counters in annoyance.

"Monty took good care of his troops. And at least the Army knows where to put it." This results in a display of British inter-service rivalry I have not had the pleasure of, so I let the two men give each other a hard time until the Captain quits the table longing for "the days of proper Naval discipline of the cat".

"You shagged cats too?" John asks the older man's retreating back to get the one-finger salute in response. "Not my type, mate." John rejoins dryly.

After the chuckling subsides, John smiles, a gentle curve of his narrow lips conveying a startlingly genuine warmth. "You didn't finish telling me how you got into Greg's program, sorry."

I shrug, "The end of the story isn't nearly as interesting as the beginning." I talk about how being competitive with my classmate made me stumble onto an academic gap of study focused on the Royal Navy that I have been swimming in since. He narrows his eyes in interest while I am talking, but at the end he nods politely, obviously not seeing the importance of the work.

"Sorry. I hear Greg talking about some of the things he is working on and I can't believe what some people get paid for."

"Well, we aren't paid a lot. And I can see where from the outside it looks like historians get caught up in a lot of trivial minutia, but the general idea is that by studying the details we will understand the larger events better. In my case the progression of the power of the nation state and the development of the military as a disciplined fighting force. And in understanding how things came to be, we learn, hopefully, how to best move forward in the future."

He tips his head to the side slightly, reinforcing the raptor analogy I had at first impression, considering the idea and then dismissing it. "A bit above my pay grade, I'm afraid."

"If today's political climate is anything to go by, learning from the past is above everyone's pay grade." He grunts in agreement as he polishes off his coffee. "How long were you in?"

"Thirteen years."

"Infantry?"

A furrow appears between his brows, "Didn't realize it showed."

"The grease paint is practically still oozing from your pores. My mother's family is Army; there is just something in the way you hold yourself, how you've kept in shape…"

"So you've noticed my shape." An eyebrow cocks in amusement as I feel my face flaming.

"Where did you serve?" I keep the conversation on track.

He lets me get away with it, though there is a merry lascivious light in his eyes that does not bode well for the future. "Kuwait, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan."

"…Damn."

"I saw my fair share."

"That's a bit more than "fair share". Are you still in?"

"No," He looks down at table, shifting tensely, "No. Took early retirement. Shoulder injury."

_Not that injured from what I have seen._ "Couldn't tie you to a desk job, huh?"

"Not for love nor money." He smiles that gentle closed lip smirk again and I decide I like it. "I do security contract work now, lots of travel. Which reminds me, I've been meaning to thank you for helping Alex. She's come a long way this last week."

"It's the environment. You know how training via immersion is."

"True, but you made it understandable. She's had a really rough time this year. It's good to see her exerting herself and, well, as happy as she can be. Happy for Alex. I…" he rubs a hand over his eyes and smirks with a wry sadness, "I'm still getting over the fact that she's not ten anymore, let alone turning 18."

_I wonder when someone tattooed "family counseling" on my forehead._ "Welcome to teenage girls. In my experience father - daughter relationships are the most awkward because they are the most alien, especially through adolescence." I get up to take my dishes to the galley. He starts to clear the rest of table. "Unless there are some mutual interests, it can be very hard to find a common ground."

""We have not had anything in common for years and when her mother died I was not around as much as I wanted to be, as I should have been."

"Is that why she is so angry?"

"Her mother died while I was in the…out of the country," he says, putting the dishes down in the wash station and thanking the member of C watch on galley duty before continuing, "...and six weeks after I got home I was sent out again on a trip that turned into a clu…a mess."

"My virgin ears can take "clusterfuck.""

He smiles a bit at that. "I didn't get home for a month. By the time I got back…You've seen what it's been like."

"Couldn't you have turned down the contract?"

"I don't have that liberty."

"Well...the truth is you're stuck. You try too hard she hates you. You give up she hates you. You're just going to have to wait it out. While she hates you. Just make sure she knows that you love her and that you are there when she is ready."

"And when will that be, I wonder." he says dryly as we head up the stairs to the lab. Him in front of me this time.

"I don't know. Even if I did know the entirety of everything that went on between you two, there really is no way to predict how long that kind of anger can last. Just know that I say this from experience: That if nothing else, there will come a day when she will simply be tired of the weight of it. The trick is when she does finally gets tired of it, to be there so she doesn't just walk away for good." I lean against the side of the hull as an endless horizon of dark blue water slides by, scattered with vast, yellow-green mats of sargassum weed as if we were sailing through an endless marsh.

Just add lilies and you have C.S. Lewis' vision of the ends of the Narnian earth.

John hangs onto one of the ropes as the breeze ruffles his hair just a tad, looking at me oddly. I'm struck by how dramatically the light changes the color of his eyes, what appeared grey below deck is now a dark watery blue. I'm almost tempted to take him over to the other side of the ship to see if the bright light of the afternoon sun makes a difference. He is about to say something when three of C watch walk by on the way forward.

"Need a hand?"

So John and I go help the strike and furl the jib, pulling the sail down and then climbing out onto the head rig netting to fold it properly and tie it to the bowsprit. Knots are one of my weak points, I just get them confused so easily, so John has to show me how to tie a proper reef knot. We're just wrapping that up when I hear a splash slightly out of rhythm with the water against the hull.

"John." I touch his arm lightly, "Look down."

At that moment, a sleek grey shape breaks the surface as a spotted dolphin surges forward under us. I count seven bow-riding, darting in and out of the wave created by the hull of the ship, surfing it to reach greater speeds than they could on their own.

You have not been in the presence of essential and unparalleled joy de vivre until you have watched dolphins at play. Be as cynical and jaded as you want, Mother Nature will strip it from you in an instant with a jump and a splash.

Especially when one dolphin keeps trying to do a barrel roll only to land on his or her side.

Watching John's reaction to them is almost as much fun as watching them, his movements darting as he looks between his feet and then over the bowsprit and then behind him, trying to follow every member of the pod, his expression a unique combination of wonder, curiosity, and intense focus.

Word travels fast and soon everyone not on duty has come to the bow to see the first dolphins of the trip. Most look over the side of the hull, but since it is Alex' first time I pass her my harness and trade places with her on the headrig.

I watch the pair from the bow. John's attention fixed now on his daughter's innocent laughter. Not touching or speaking to her, but standing close to her. Watching her be ten again, probably.

After the dolphins went their way, there was a quick conference between Alex and John that seemed to result in a détente for the next couple days. Not that they spent time together, but John could haul on the same rope as his daughter without waves of "sullen" radiating off her. They once even managed to sit at the same table civilly, though the topics of conversation around them were carefully chosen to be completely neutral.

"Gods willing, " I say to Rene as we are "skylarking", playing around in the rigging of the masts. At this particular moment we are climbing up the foremast shrouds to the course yardarm, "...we've seen the end of the worst of it."

"Teenagers." She reminds me shakily.

I remember that Rene never spent much time aloft on our first trip. Climbing 40 to 100 feet above the hard teak deck of a moving ship, its roll accentuated through the mast until you can be swaying in arcs of dozen feet or more, can be somewhat daunting. "You o.k.?"

"Yeah. I'll conquer this."

_Better keep her talking._ "Were you that bad as a kid? I think I was worse."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"I was more the "withdraw and write horribly self involved poetry in my voluminous journal" type. I didn't have the Daddy issues you and Alex had, but I had my own angst….Oh shit. How do I get up over this? I can't remember."

Rene has reached the cross trees, where the yardarm is attached, requiring her to let go of the comforting shrouds and find a very awkward leverage to haul herself onto the platform that juts out over her head.

After coaching her up onto the platform, she sits, dangling her legs over the edge as the wind tosses her brown curls in her face. "O.K., that's far enough for the first time out." So we sit and watch the horizon, greatly expanded by our height over the water so that we can see the sails of six of our sister ships around us. We chat about Rene's master's thesis, the book I am working on, what we have read lately. Enjoy thrashing Stephanie Meyer within an inch of her life to much laughter.

"Don't say that in front of Alex tho'." Rene interjects, "She *loves* those gawdawful things."

I groan, "Why am I not surprised? Please tell me you have been trying to get her to move on to real books?"

"I'm working on it. I wish we had some Anne Rice on board, at least then she could decently written Vampire romance."

"Little chance of coming across an English copy of that on this trip, at least until we hit Port Antonio. How is she doing?" Off duty, Alex has been spending more time with the folks closer to her own age, though even then that's 2 to 6 years older.

Rene shrugs, "She's a kid, but she's British so it's inherently less obnoxious on the surface. She's read some, what has been assigned in school mostly, but she really isn't an abstract thinker. She's smart though. Kevin started walking her through the first steps of stellar navigation and she's picking it up like *that*." Rene snaps her fingers, "I was surprised when she said she wasn't going to college."

"She isn't?"

"No. Self-destructive angry teen syndrome. She blew off her A levels completely."

"Ouch."

"After this trip, she moving in with a friend and going to work in a clothing store."

"That's just sad. She's sharper than that."

"That is one of the points of contention between her and her Dad, but I gather the divorce was really messy and since he doesn't have a degree, he doesn't exactly have a good position to argue from."

"They were divorced?"

"Yeah, a few years before her Mom died. When she was 13 I think."

"That explains it." I look down at the quarter deck to see John, in a white and tan ratty T-shirt and cargo pants ensemble, wiping his hands on a rag and talking with the Captain. "I wondered why he seemed so…detached from his wife, ex-wife's, death."

"And why he was flirting with you only months afterward?"

"Seems a slightly less tacky now. Only a slightly though." John and I have spoken a couple times after our initial conversation. Sixty percent of his talk is interestingly topical, an outline of the major political players in Pakistan and a very colorfully informative play-by-play of the Battle of El Alamein being highlights. Thirty-five percent is personal, mostly Alex while sharing small anecdotes. And then there's that last five percent. Unfortunately, despite my consistent rebuffs he seems unable to resist making increasingly suggestive comments, taking an almost sadistic delight in making me blush. This morning he is on a "ginger" kick. Hence one of the reasons I'm up the mast.

And given the little wave and big grin he just gave me before going back below decks, he knows it.

"So…" Rene follows my gaze with one of her mischievous smiles, "What is going on?"

I shrug, "Nothing. Holiday flirting. Probably because I'm one the few females on this ship *not* close to his daughter's age."

"Oh sure….What was it they voted you at the end of the class last time?"

"Shut up."

As much as I would like to stay up the mast, my watch comes on after lunch and I get to fill the log book for the first hour, which includes touring the ship. Which includes reading the temperature gauges in the engine room.

The stream of profanity is a trickle now as John has managed to keep the desalination system limping along for drinking and cooking purposes until we get to the Dominican Republic.

"Will you be able to get the part that you need in Samana?" I call down the hatch in the floor to the engine compartment.

"Yeah." John's voice is given deeper resonance in the steel lined room below, "Greg radioed ahead for it as soon as I figured out what the problem is. It should be waiting for us when we arrive tomorrow. Coming up."

"Well, that will be a relief." I reply. Since the engine is off, I can take the nominal readings from the control panel in the upper deck as John climbs the short ladder from the cramped engine compartment. With an engine big enough to drive 280 ton displacement vessel and other systems, the lower compartment gets stuffy even when the engine is off and John's T-shirt is sweat stained. As he rakes his fingers through his damp hair, I'm struck by the image and smile.

"What?"

"Roll a pack of cigarettes in your sleeve and you'd look like a greaser from the 50's."

He chuckles, "Quit when Lexie was little. Not to say that on days like this having a beer and a fag doesn't sound like heaven."

"I quit ages ago, but there are some days I have to keep reminding myself that I am *not* a smoker anymore."

"The hardest bit when I'm out having a meal or just a drink."

"Ah yes, the eternal "pub balance": Drink in one hand, cigarette in the other. Understandable. That doesn't bother me so much tho'. It's sitting in front of the TV I can't do anymore. I can't sit that still without doing something. The problem is to supplement the…" I make the gesture of lifting a cigarette to my lips, "…I eat. So after gaining several pounds, I just stopped watching TV. I still get fidgety in movie theatres tho'."

His mouth has started to tilt sideways as that salacious glimmer comes into his eyes, "Sounds like an oral fixation."

"One you are not equipped to help me with." I snap back dryly as I turn towards the door.

"Prude. I bet there isn't a single strand of real ginger on you."

I pause at the door, drumming my fingers on the handle as John starts to go back down the ladder.

"You know how much I liked sucking my thumb as a kid?" John looks up at me as I lean over the hatchway on my hands and knees, purring my words. "The feel of something warm and firm and fleshy against my tongue? Mmmmm. I still love that feeling, but alas no one has ever lasted long enough to satisfy the craving." I pout for a moment, before..."I believe the expression on your face is what is termed "gobsmacked" in your country, is it not? You stupid man. Don't you know it's *always* the quiet ones?"

And I dart out the door and slam it behind me before his neurons start firing again.

By the time I have finished filling out the hourly log, I regret my outburst. The problem with men is that when you escalate, so do they. While John's comments have been teasingly suggestive they have not crossed the line into crass provocation that I just did.

Stepping out into the afternoon breeze, I decide I will handle the situation like any rational adult would.

I'll avoid him for the next few days.

...


	3. Chapter 3

_Part III_

Looking at the Tall Ship fleet moored in Santa Barbara de Samana, one can't help but see an era hundreds of years ago when this was one of the busiest New World ports in the Spanish Empire, the last stop before crossing the Atlantic with their millions in stolen gold and silver. Kevin and I would be positively desperate for a pirate flag if several ships had not already beaten us to it.

Most of the fleet, including us, are moored out beyond the harbor itself. A concrete walking bridge that joins a small island in the middle of the bay to the mainland separating us from the smaller draft vessels who can sail into the shallow harbor. Behind the plaza and the open air beach front clubs, restaurants, and shops of the tourist strip, the town rises into the lush green hills, becoming another world entirely. The cheap stucco or wood houses stacked on each other with fetid streams whose content you do not want to know running down the hill between the narrow cracked asphalt or dirt streets filled with roaming kids, dogs, chickens. But those cheap houses sit on land families have owned for generations, where a respect, an open hand, and a smile are extended to visitors who greet them with the same. Behind that are low mountains of tall trees, long rains, short streams, and scattered small farms.

Once the immigration officials have come out to the ship and checked the crew in, John takes the zodiac to go pick up the needed part to fix the desalinization system. Dr Randall drives anyone within reach on deck and hover over us as we make the ship as presentable as possible. At sea you can get away with the deck being a little slovenly for convenience's sake, but in port a boat is supposed to look her best, which means no loosely lumped up sails on deck and no laundry hanging from the safety lines along the rail. Sails precisely furled, gear squared away, brass gleaming.

Eventually, the Captain resigns himself to the fact he is working with a bunch of hopeless civilians and takes the boat ashore for dinner with other captains in the fleet. I won't speculate on how much rum was consumed, but he was not seen the following morning before we left for shore leave.

Kevin has agreed to lead those interested in a hike up into the hills to a waterfall, including a scattering of people from all the watches and some old shipmates currently crewing other ships. John is coming too, "Just to stretch my legs a bit". But while we wait for the group to assemble for our ride out of town, Alex jumps ship to join a group of kids her own age from _The Spirit of Concord_ kayaking through the mangrove swamp in the National Park on the other side of the bay, leaving John silently radiating resigned disappointment the entire truck-ride up into the hills.

Once we hit the trail John sets murderous pace through the trees that everyone else in the group gives up on with comments about death marches. I grew up around men John's size, learning to stretch my stride and walk fast, so I can keep up with him. And even if after a couple hours I can't, I wasn't about to let him know that. Still he takes pity on me and calls a halt at a bend in the trail where the tree line opens to overlook a green valley, the thick forest broken up by small gazing fields with scatterings of black cows.

We quietly munch on our apples and drink water as we enjoy the view and the gentle waft of what is left of the sea breeze after making it this far inland, only the sounds of birds breaking the silence. John hucks his core an impressive distance into the trees below us. I throw like a girl.

"Did I offend you?" I ask.

"What?"

"What I said the other day. That was kind of crass."

I can't see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but the corner of his mouth tilts up, "Well, you did warn me that you were competitive. No, I don't think any man would have been offended by that, love." He tips his head back slightly as he looks down his nose at me almost suspiciously. "Just trying to figure you out."

"What's to figure?"

"You're bookish and a bit artsy, but you can plot the ship's position to within 4 miles with a sextant and you love the hands-on work so much it's hard to pry you off the deck. You have no trouble shouting sail commands down the length of the ship and you're certainly not shy about expressing yourself, but you're happiest on your own. When you argue over something you are thoroughly logical, and stubborn as a mule. But then there is your…"

Listening to him I suddenly think of the "growly voice" description used in Winnie Ther Pooh. I don't think John's low, almost sultry, rumble with its smooth dry upper notes and it's rich tonal underpinnings is quite what A.A. Milne had in mind, but the description itself suits: John has a growly voice. However, the odd juxtaposition of "Rolly-Polly Bear" and 6'2" Ex-Infantry Serviceman almost makes me snort with laughter. "My…?"

"Uh…beliefs."

"Are you really going to go there?"

"Well, it's just a little weird that the same woman who demands proof, properly certified documentation, of Rommel's strategy…."

"I did not ask for certified documentation, I asked you to prove it." I laugh.

"…is the same woman who also gives me a hard time for being a Taurus and chucks money over the side."

"Well then you shouldn't be so much of one, and it was a sacrifice to Poseidon for a safe journey."

"Right. After all that, watching you go from zero to Linda Lovelace in 30 seconds, well that's just icing on the cake." he says, the amusement clearly present with his interest.

"Yeeeah. I don't really have a "medium setting"."

"I've noticed."

"Look, I have never known how to flirt. Be playful with people I'm already interested in, sure. But I don't know how to be casually coquettish. Either I'm in there or I'm not."

John's face becomes neutral. "So..."

"So how are things with Alex?"

John takes a deep breath with the change in topic and growls cynically. "Fine. We're right back where we started."

"How so?"

"Less tantrums and more ducking out. She's like her mother. Dianne never could tackle something straight on. I don't mean to speak ill of her," he adds swiftly. "She did provide a stable home for Lexie, which is more than I could have done."

"Can I ask what happened?"

He's silent for while before he stands and shoulders his backpack. I trot along the trail in his wake silently waiting him out for a few hundred yards. "When I retired, I had difficulty finding work. It took me a very long time to finally find my feet again outside the military."

"And in a sense you ended up going back to it."

"...Yeah. I did."

"No shame in that, history is littered with men who have a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Several of our greatest military figures in fact. Doesn't make them any less of men. It's what they were born for just as some of us wouldn't thrive in a military environment."

"...I suppose." He concedes, but clearly not impressed with my long view.

I take the mild rebuke. "I suppose that doesn't make it any easier."

He ignores my concession. "When we moved out of military housing, Dianne...Things between Dianne and I hadn't been good for a long time. I just didn't see how bad it was. She and Lexie moved in with her Mum, just until I got things sorted out. And then a year later she found their own place, just until I got things sorted out. And then 10 months after that I got served with papers saying she had petitioned for divorce."

"What!"

"Just "Sign for this Mr. Porter." Part of me saw it coming, but I guess I was listening to the part of me that didn't want to."

"She just bailed out? Never even gave you a chance?" I could understand if after a couple years of watching her husband sink into jobless depression, she decided she couldn't take it anymore, but it sounds like she hit the eject button before they could see if he could find work or not. But what is more bothersome to me is how incensed I've become on his behalf. I take a deep steadying breath as I let him go on.

"Like I said, there had been problems for a long time. She never adjusted to my life in the..army. She liked routine, order. Never knowing when I might be deployed or for how long, in some cases not even knowing where I was, never sat well with her. There were other things too...doesn't matter. She was never was able to confront problems head on and Lexie picked that up from her. Since she was 13, her way of dealing me has alternated between refusing to or the odd sullen whinge and then refusing to. After her mother died, we got on well for a few weeks. Almost like I was her Dad again. But when I got back from this last trip..." he shakes his head in frustration.

"She was angry."

"She had a right to be," he admits. "I let her down through half her life, and then when she had no one else to turn to I took off again. But what the fuck was I supposed to do?" His volume starts to rise in frustration, "Go back to being a security guard? Being someone she can't even look in the eye? She still can't look me in the fucking eye."

"Why?"

He stops for a moment and then resumes his pace and a more subdued volume setting. "Because of what happened. I don't think she believes me."

I'm starting to lose the thread of the conversation. "You lied to her?"

"...I made promises I didn't keep, that was enough."

_Oh, she doesn't believe IN him._ "Did you try to keep them?"

"After I lost the Army, all I had left was my family. I would have done anything to be with them."

_"Lost" it?_ "Does she know that?"

"I've told her, but it always seemed that my choices came down to the service or my family. I can't do both. I got back on my feet, but all she sees is her Dad leaving, letting her down again."

There is a roar coming up the hillside as a rain shower moves through the valley. Fat temperate raindrops quickly start to soak us through. John turns to see what I want to do and I shrug, "I won't need to do laundry for another day." I say as I plow past him.

We continue on, but the rain is too heavy and loud to permit conversation which gives me time to think. I'm not getting the entire picture here. Of course that is the problem when dealing in family issues: You're usually are only getting one side and don't know the entire dynamic of a very emotionally charged situation, which is why most people stay out of family squabbles not their own. But I turn over how best to respond to this, brushing aside the niggling concern over the odd nuances of John's statements.

As the rain passes, we cross the little rope bridge over the stream at the top of the waterfall. We stop to peer through the trees over the edge 150 feet down to the pool below where there is a small gathering of tourists and locals swimming or waiting for their friends or kids under the dripping trees.

"Look John, I'm not a parent. I can only speak from the perspective of a daughter. Alex is in a one of the hardest transitions between childhood and adulthood and that is seeing their parent as not a god or a monster, but as a human being. It takes some people decades to make that transition, and it's a very delicate and confusing time in which the parent doesn't know if they are an adult friend or being thrust back into their old role as "Dad". Alex has the added stress of having her whole life in upheaval. She's still grieving over her mother, she's moving out into the world, and what is to you getting your act together she might view as you not just being physically gone, but you moving on from your old family. Because you have moved on from your old role, your old self, she might see it as you moving away from her. So to protect herself she keeps trying to shove you back into that old role, a role she understands and relies on. Even if she doesn't like it, it's the closest thing she can get to stability right now. That's how she may be hanging onto you because this new Dad, the Dad who has his shit together, is a little scary."

"So I'm still her whipping boy so she feels like she has a grip on something."

"Something like that. Maybe."

The switch-backed trail down to the pool is now a slickway of fine clay mud that doesn't deter him in his military issue boots, but is treacherous for me in my Tevas. He grabs my wrist as my feet go out from under me, leaving me hanging from an iron grip for a second until I can find purchase on a root right in front of him.

I'm 5'8" and weigh 150 pounds fighting fit so size has never been an impressive factor for men, but I sometimes forget that men have more muscle mass so that pound for pound, they're just stronger.

And that's why I'm kind of breathless as he slips a hand around my waist to hold me steady against him. I forgot.

So why am I looking at his lips?

"I...I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Thank you." I disengage to walk in the leaf litter along the side of the trail as much as possible, trying to erase his warm masculine scent of sweat and rain and earth from my mind.

Now that the sun is out again, the El Salto de Limon is lovely. The stream fans out into a wide waterfall over the cliff-face, carving a turbulent green pool out of the volcanic rock. Groups of tourist hikers and local kids duck and play in water while the more staid take pictures and stand around in the cool spray.

I'm not staid. I bound over the rocks to the pool edge and drop my backpack, stripping off my wet t-shirt.

John stands back to look at my white bikini top, but I'm so looking forward to the swim I don't care.

"Aren't you coming in?" I ask as I pull my sodden cargo pants off.

"I didn't bring my swimming kit...Honey."

I did choose the suit for the allusion to the first Bond Girl, so I just smile. "I don't think anyone cares." I jerk my head over to a pair of locals coming out of the water in their BVD's.

"Yeah, well..."

"Your loss!" I fall backward, Nestea Plunge style, into the pool.

And come back up with a gasp. In my eagerness, I forgot this was mountain run off. John has set his backpack down next to mine.

"And how's is it?" He smirks, knowing damn well how it is.

"F-fine. Like a bathtub." I lay back and push off, trying not to shiver as I let my body get used to it while I watch John hook his hands in the back of his t-shirt to pull it over his head.

O.K.. I'm not so cold anymore.

From the side, it's biceps and the complex structure of his shoulders made clear by his powerful musculature. His pale skin stretched over the strong muscles of his ribcage and chest. John is built...interestingly. Like his hands in fact. The long slender fingers on wide square palms a reflection of the slender forearms and calves on a strong torso with powerful biceps...and thighs. The dark blue trunks bring out the bronze in his skin, giving some warmth to the typical English pal...

_Oh my gawd._

What I thought was a mole on his back has a matching exit wound over his right hip. A nasty rough edged circular scar contrasting with the clean smooth semicircle with its halo of sutures on the inside of his left shoulder.

He ducks himself under and comes up gasping before he notices my expression, "What?"

"What happened? I mean," I shake my head to reorder my thoughts. "...it's obvious what happened but...What happened?"

The light in his eyes is shuttered as he stands waist deep in the water, "Well, I told you what happened with my shoulder. This was, erm, Sierra Leone." He touches the mark above his hip.

"That was not treated in a hospital." My fingertips make the barest contact with it a second before I snatch my hand away. _What was I thinking?_

"... No," he rasps before he clears his throat, "We were out in the field without a medic and had to cauterize it."

"And it got infected of course." _Men and their stupid macho..._

"Better than bleeding all over the place," he rejoins defensively.

"It's a miracle it didn't hit your large intestine."

"That's what they said when I got to hospital." His gaze flicks away, clearly uncomfortable.

"It just bothers me that you were hurt." A warm light reappears in his eyes and I realize what I just said. And how provocative our positions are as I float there in front of his stomach. I stand as well. "It's no big deal. I've got scars. See?" I point to the small tear-drop shape on my tummy, "My cousin pushed me down an embankment and I impaled myself on a broken branch."

"Hmm. Terrible wound." His growl drops to a low purr as his finger trails lightly over the pale mark on my now trembling stomach. I step back.

"And then this one on my shoulder," I turn away from him, "...is from going tail over head off a skateboard."

He places his hands lightly on my hips and closes the gap, his warm lines of his body against the length of my back contrasting with the cool spray of the fall. He "tsks" before I feel the soft rasp of stubble on my shoulder blade as he touches his lips the faint comet shape, ever so softly.

I'm startled by the living green of the leaves and the water reflected in his eyes. His mouth is so close….

"I see you found your way!" Kevin calls out from across the pool as he and the rest of our shipmates are whooping and hollering, peeling off their clothes and jumping in.

"I see you finally made it!" I move away from John and dive back in the water.

"I know it's a crazy idea, but some of us hike to enjoy the scenery, not just move through it as fast as possible."

"We enjoy it. We just do it faster than you."

With so much splashing hullabaloo, I don't notice as John quietly exits the pool. In fact, it isn't until I'm getting out later that I notice he's gone.

"He said he'd meet us in the bar at the trail head," Kevin explains as he serves as the "horse" in a more freewheeling version of water polo that seems to involve smacking other players with a wet balled up t-shirt.

"Were those...?" Rene, Kevin's "rider", waves at her shoulder and hip.

"Gunshot wounds."

"Well, that's one way to announce "Don't fuck with me,"" Kevin observes.

"I guess," I chuckle.

"No. Really," Rene follows. "People backed up as he got out. A couple guys seemed positively impress- OW!" She falls into the water as another team scores a hit with a solid *THWAP!*.

I go on ahead back down the trail, just to enjoy the time to myself.

And to sort out my feelings.

Physical chemistry? It has become impossible to deny that just being close to him makes my body kidnap my mind and drag it into the sensual delights of the most primal drives. Intellectually? He _is_ such a Taurus, which just my saying that highlights the differences. He's certainly intelligent, and moreover he's clever, learning and adapting quickly and creatively. At least when it comes to grounded topics such as the mechanics of sail or politics. It's the more esoteric, abstract arenas of thought he doesn't seem interested in. He's not much of an conceptual idea person. Not that he couldn't go there; he can follow and understand when others do. He just isn't naturally inclined. It hasn't really hindered conversation thus far, but it deserves notation in the "Con" column.

And third part of the equation?

In the early-afternoon the cantina at the trailhead is only sparely populated. John has found a plastic lawn chair on the patio against the wall of the bar, his long legs propped on another chair with his head tilted back, employing one of the first, and most useful, skills learned in the military: How to sleep anywhere.

For all his obvious physical power and assured demeanor, his touch can be so gentle, almost tentative. For all his issues and innuendo, at his core John is uncomplicated and earnest. There is something about him that is warm and strong and solid, something that tempts me to anchor myself to and come home to shelter in.

This is not what I was looking for when I signed up for this trip.

I start to kick the chair out from under his legs when he smoothly slides them to the side to pull it away.

An eyebrow peeks questioningly from behind his sunglasses. "Well?"

We regard each other for moment.

"Buy me a drink soldier?"

Watching John smile is like watching the sky go from starlight to sunlight in an instant. He sets his shades down and gets up, removing my glasses to join his on the table before brushing the messy locks back from my face.

Like the touch of his hands, the first touch of his lips is gentle, fragile, as if he was trying to enshrine that first precious moment of contact. But it is not enough and so it is swiftly, almost greedily, followed by a second kiss, a third, until the sweetness becomes fire and everything fades away until my world is nothing but him. His teasing lips, the warm, rich taste of his breath on the velvet of his tongue, the tang of his earthy autumn scent, the strength of his tall form that I have molded myself to, my fingers buried in the prickly hair on the back of his neck.

A sharp wolf whistle from one of the other patrons brings us back down to reality. John rests his forehead against mine for a moment as we try to regain our breath and our equilibrium. Out of my peripheral vision I see him make a rude gesture in the direction of the sound.

"Consiga su propio, amigo."

By the time the rest of the group catches up, John has resumed his posture of cat napping in front of a table with a pair of empty beer bottles. This time his legs being used as a prop for mine as I sit next to him.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

_Part IV_

In a group of twenty-seven people crammed into 135 feet, I'm not interested in being "the couple who were found in each other's bunks", though I think John might be amenable to the idea if one of the twenty-seven people wasn't his child. So after stealing another delicious kiss by the anchor windlass by the light of the moon and the town ("Thank Christ I kissed you first on land. I'd hate to try to do this for the first time while underway."), we adjourn to our separate sleeping arrangements.

The following day John heads up into the hills again with a few other guys from the fleet for a more challenging hike. I decide to stick to my original plan of joining Rene and some of the others for some scuba diving in the morning and then soaking up some of the local color.

And by local, I don't mean the tourist traps in town. After catching a small fleet of motorcycle taxis for a hair-raising ride over the hills to what looks like a collection of trucks and cars surrounding a small dirt access road, we walk down to find a glorious stretch of white sand crowded with makeshift bars, food vendors, and families. The older folks sit back watching their grandkids play in the low gentle waves as the younger adults wander up and down the sand socializing.

And did I mention the music? Either a band or a DJ every two hundred yards or so pumping out the merengue or more popular tunes. _Ah._

A lot of the fleet has been to the D.R. before, so we find plenty of familiar faces. Including Alex and her new cohorts of the _Spirit_ whom we pass with just wave as they are clearly busy basking in sun and the admiration of a number of lads, both local and imported. Later as I sit in the shade of one of the makeshift bars, Alex comes and plunks herself down at my cheap plastic table with a rum and coke.

"Watch it with those. They keep the strong stuff in country."

She shrugs, sitting back in the chair in her fashionably colorful one piece and sarong. "I figured that out yesterday when I got pissed from two daiquiris with dinner."

"…Escaping?"

"Yeah, one of the guys was getting a little weird. "Oh, there is a your boat, it is sailing away without you..." she imitates a Haitian accent flawlessly before snapping back to her own, popping her eyebrows in a familiar manner. "Right, I'm going to get a drink."

I swallow the smirk at hearing John's pragmatic inflections in a feminine voice. "Creeeepyyyy. Yeah, that sounds like a good time to take a break. How were the mangroves?"

Brief descriptions of the wildlife of the grove and spelunking in a Cueva de San Gabriel which has an opening to the sea "right out of the Count of Monte Cristo" are parsed in between more lengthy narratives about kayak races and conversations with cute boys. She asks me about my hike and then after politely listening for a few minutes.

"Yeah, it sounds really cool...He was mad wasn't he?"

"...He was disappointed."

She sighs heavily. "I know, I know. He arranged this trip for "quality time" and all that rubbish, but...I'll spend time with him in Jamaica."

"Is he really that hard to spend time with?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's not like he a bastard, but he just...he just sets me off is all."

"Why?"

"He treats me like kid. Like he still has a right to after being gone all the time."

"Well, it doesn't sound like he had much choice."

"Bloody Army. How do you compete with division of the government for someone's attention? He was always away, always leaving, off to Bosnia or Africa or Iraq or wherever. When he was around he was great, but that was only 6 months or so out of the year. And that's when he was around at all when I was a kid. When Mum died, he put in a token "Good Dad" effort y'know, for all of six weeks and then he was gone again. For a fucking month. Now we're supposed to be all chummy. And then he'll be gone again. I wish he would just make up his fucking mind and either stay or go...Preferably go right now."

"Well, forgive me for saying this, but it wasn't always the Army was it? I mean he did try to find other work."

"When he was forced to, and then he ended up in London."

"Better than Iraq."

She says nothing, but looks like she is about to leave.

"Look, Alex. My Dad left the service because he was sick of coming home from deployment and finding his kids two inches taller. And it did not go well. He really struggled to find his way and was working a lot of late nights and traveling far from home. And yeah in some ways it beat being on an aircraft carrier for months at a time because he could see his kids most nights and weekends. But it was not worth the price. I watched him wreck himself for the sake of his family, bit by bit. Seeing a naval pilot, a college educated officer, work his way up from fry cook to materials technician, and then get laid off because he was over 55. Pieces of him just dropped away as he struggled to get by and provide for us. He died a bitter, miserable man. I think I would have rather he been away six months out of the year and had all of my Dad for half the time, rather than spend all that time, twenty years, watching the shell of him slowly disintegrate. And what was really sad was that I realized two years too late that he and I had been so busy being disappointed in each other, we couldn't see that we were both in the same painful place."

"It's not fair..." she says into her drink, her blond hair falling down to hide her eyes.

"No, it's not and I'm not saying you should be grateful. I'm just saying that of the choices you and he had in front of you, have in front of you now, what's the best one? Life is rarely about getting what we want. It usually is about making do with what we get. You got a lousy deal, but you have to deal with it."

"I just really miss Mum." She doesn't make any attempt to wipe away the tear.

"I know." I put my hand over hers. "I know..."

"I remember sitting there after, y'know, they told me, after calling Hugh. I tried Dad first, but he was...He didn't pick up." Her face screws up for a moment in hurt and anger before she looks away. "And people were just walking by with their clipboards and their coffee's, chatting on their phones. It was just so wrong. I felt like the world should stop, even if just for a minute. I just needed it to stop."

I give her hand a squeeze and she squeezes back.

"It's not right when such a huge chunk of your life, a piece of your foundation, has been suddenly ripped from you, that life goes on. But it does. But maybe you can make it stop just for yourself."

"That's kind of like what being on board the ship is like. It's kind of still." She takes her hand back to belatedly wipe her face, "'S funny because you're working all the time and the rest of the world is going on, but it's…out there."

"Yeah it is. It gives you time to work through stuff like this. Have you talked to your Dad? He lost someone he cared about to."

"They're divorced."

"But he still knew and cared for her a long time and she was the mother of his child, of you, that's a connection that really can't be done away with by a legal proceeding."

"...Yeah, a little when he got home. Before he took off again."

"Parents have the most amazing abilities. They can use their powers for good or evil, but I bet you, if you asked, he could make the world go still for a while for you. Your Dad is making the effort to give you as much of himself as he can, if you let him."

She takes that in for a moment and then breathes deeply, shaking it off before heading back to her friends.

I should start charging.

I leave the beach early to meet up with John for supper in town. He has returned from the hills sweaty, worn out, and kissable. Good thing he wasn't so worn out that I didn't knock him over when I pounced on him.

"*mmm*. How was it?"

"Brilliant." he replies. I enjoy watching his brain rewire itself for "affectionate _Kip_", "We went out about 10 clicks along the ridge of the mountains, saw the ocean on both sides of the peninsula."

"You don't sound impressed."

"No, it was great to be out and about. I'm just used to wide open spaces. Spending that amount of time in the trees... " he shrugs.

"You live in London."

"That's different."

"Your den?"

He ponders that a moment before agreeing with a touch of surprise, "Y'could put it like that. How was the diving?"

We partake of the local fare in a small restaurant off the tourist drag that can deal with my silk sarong and beach cover and his yet-another-t-shirt (blue)-and-cargo-pants (grey)-ensemble (the joys of boat clothes). After leaving his backpack with the proprietor, we walk out onto causeway stretching across to the small island in the middle of the bay, my fingers entwined with his long slender ones.

"You know," he murmurs in my ear as we stop to look out over the fleet anchored in the bay, his hands drifting lightly down my arms to my waist, pulling me back into him "...we could get a room."

I try and fail to subdue the shiver that goes straight down my spine. "We'd never make it back to the liberty boat in time, and I'm not on any birth control."

"S'alright. I'm covered. Literally."

"That was quick."

"What is it your lads say? "Be prepared"?"

"That's the Boy Scouts."

"You Yanks are serious about your sex ed."

"Great, you are going to have that song running through my head all night."

"What song?"

"Tom Lehrer. It's a parody, never mind"

"Let's hear it."

"Absolutely not!" I try to push away from him but despite repeated and vehement assurances that I cannot sing, John holds my freedom ransom until I am forced to sing "Be Prepared" to his great amusement.

"You were warned."

"It's not so bad, though I think you sing the blues better."

The only time I sing audibly is in the dead of night when I'm on bow watch and no one is around, or so I thought. "O.K. how creeped out should I be by that statement?"

He smirks and takes my hand as we walk on. "And where did you pick up the blues? Old blues by the sound of it."

The ensuing conversation about music turns to youthful indiscretions turns to our ink. After explaining the Kipling quote around my ankle, I push up the sleeve of his T-shirt up to reveal the stenciled scorpion tattoo I saw yesterday.

"I got that after my tour in Kuwait. A bunch of us did. For being young and stupid and alive." As dismissively he speaks of it, I notice that the tattoo has been recently re-inked.

"Why did you go into the Army?"

He takes a deep breath as he considers his answer. "At the time, I would have said "necessity", but I guess there was more to it than that."

"How so?"

"Well, my father was in the Army. Career officer. And my brothers and sister are too. Well, Michael is in the Navy, he made admiral last year I think."

"Not very close then."

"They're older, didn't grow up with got on alright while I was in the service, but after I left that ended too."

"So you took up the family business."

"Yeah." The causeway was originally built to be a walkway to another hotel, but the hotel itself was never built so it ends in massive, crumbling concrete stairway to nowhere, a picture of "the best laid plans..." being re-taken by nature. John and I climb up a few steps and sit in the shade of the trees before he continues. "My parents got divorced when I was two. My older brothers stayed with Dad to finish up school, but my Mum moved back North with me and Kendra to be near her family. After a couple years Dad sent Kendra to a private school, but I wasn't old enough for him to really take an interest, and by the time I was he'd remarried. To the officer he left my mother for."

"Ouch."

"Yep. I had a very dim view of the military growing up. When I came out of school with no A-levels to my name, it was the last thing on my mind."

"What did you do?"

"Worked…Twocked cars. Stripped them." He says ruefully.

"Twocked?"

"Taken Without Owners Consent."

"You didn't mention that before."

"It's not exactly dinner conversation."

"So what happened?"

"Some of my mates were arrested, and I decided it was time for me to reconsider my career choices."

"In the U.S. we flee to Mexico, where do you guys go?"

"Madrid."

"Is that where you learned Spanish?"

"That's where I practiced Spanish. I learned it in school. Thought it would be sexy."

"Oh it is." I say, deadpan, "Terribly."

The look I get promises retribution as he goes on. "I was only gone a couple months before the money ran out, and when I got home Mum told me my Father had died."

I lean into him as a hug.

He leans back, but shrugs.

"I never saw him much, couple weekends over the school holidays when he was stationed in the U.K.. That sort of thing. It never went well." In my mind's eye I have the image of a dark-haired eight year old boy glowering over a dinner table, completely unintimidated by the large shadowy figure on the other side. "I grew up seeing how much he had hurt my Mum and I hated him for it. And I hated him for not trying to be with me more, I hated the Army for taking him away from us." He gives me a look weighted with significance.

"Just like Alex."

"Just like Alex. Fuck."

"You're not the same man, John. You're making more of an effort to be with your child than he did with his."

"For all the good it does me. I can see now…It's tempting, you know. When you keep running up against that wall, day after day, it's really tempting to just say, "O.K. "" He throws his hands up in mock defeat. ""Fine, have it your way" and just go on with your life until they come 'round. I guess that is what he did. Figuring I would come 'round eventually."

"But you aren't doing that with her. You're making clear that she is important to you, even if she isn't ready to hear it yet."

"Yeah. Well, it'd be nice if she came around before I did."

"So what happened?"

"My father? Pancreatic Cancer."

I move around to hug him from behind, waiting to see where he wants to take this.

"…Anyway, at the time I couldn't see any great career opportunities working part time as a mechanic, and things were getting serious with Dianne. And I guess I was just curious too, so I went down to the center and signed up."

"And…?"

"And I had never been pushed that hard in my life. I loved it. Life is just makes more sense in the military. Sure there are political bullshit in upper levels of command, but not on the ground. On the ground it is just you and your mates getting the job done. Clean...simple."

I smile a bit. This is something I have heard before from ex-service personnel working in the corporate world."How long were you in before you went to Kuwait?"

"Seven months. I was in the Staffords, attached to the 7th Armored Brigade. I was scared shitless flying in." The smirk is self-depreciating.

"Oo."

"That was a slog. It got a little hairy sometimes," he agrees lightly. "But your training takes over and then everything gets even simpler. It's just one step at a time. Take out that guy, move to this position." His voice becomes slightly distant and strangely calm, almost monotone. "Take out this guy, take this firing angle. He moves so you move, cause and effect. So you start moving to force him to move. And all of a sudden it's over and you have three minutes to celebrate that you're still breathing before you form up and move on. It was almost like a game at first."

"At first?"

"We, uh…" His voice becomes more human again as he is pulled back to ground. He tenses slightly, almost but not quite pulling away. "Well, we were moving toward the oil fields when we bivouacked near some T-72's the Tornadoes had nailed the day before. After coming off first watch I found myself a little hollow deep enough to be good shelter while near enough to be of use. Only one other guy in it too so plenty of room to grab some kip. And when I wake up in that gray early dawn light I realize the guy sharing my little scrap of nowhere is Republican Guard. Dead of course. So there's me, waiting for the order to move out, and there's him. He couldn't have been much older than me. Sitting there you have to wonder. Did he really believe he was liberating Kuwait, or was he in it for the conquest? Was he expecting some personal profit from this, a promotion? Was he acting from loyalty to Saddam or to Iraq, or for the good of his family? Who was waiting for him to come home?...Sorry. I didn't mean to…" I hold him in place. "I know that it does not make your life, that moment, any easier, but can I just say I'm glad you have thoughts like that?"

He sits quietly for a bit before continuing, "In the thick of it it's not like you have much choice, but we've all signed up to serve our countries and if that puts us in front of the gun, well." He shrugs. "You've got respect the uniform, no matter what color it is. It's the choices people make in that uniform that really tell what kind of man they are."

"…And what kind of man are you?"

But he's had enough of this and brushes it off, "A man in the need of drink…Though that will do." He groans as I start to rub his neck.

"Too hard?"

"No, 'S perfect...So what do I get if I confess my deep seated sexual insecurities?" He looks over his shoulder at me with a hopefully arched eyebrow.

"Hush or I'll stop."

"Worth a shot, love."

But he hushes as we watch the sky growing red over the mainland as the sun nears the horizon. My fingers drift over his shoulders and back, learning their musculature before I start to stroke and knead them slowly, making my way down. I have just started working on a band of tension in the middle of his back when I feel him stiffen.

"Sorry."

"No." He pulls my hands around his chest and kisses my fingers. "No, it was great. Thank you. It's just getting late, we should head back."

"We could stay a while yet." I kiss his neck and lean against his back, breathing deeply of his warm earthy musk mingled with the sea air.

He stills for a moment, either enjoying it or indulging me, but then pats my hands to let him go as he stands, "C'mon. We can have another drink before we head back to the boat."

We're half way down the causeway when I notice something. " Huh..."

"What?"

"Oh, the guy we just a passed. Wasn't he at the falls yesterday?"

"Maybe. Small town." He says easily as takes my hand.

The_ John Paul Jones_ sets sail the next morning to make the run to Port au Prince. The weather is fair through the winds a bit contrary; keeping John busy with the engines as we handle sail constantly to make the most of what comes our way. After a while, setting, striking, and resetting the same sail two or three times a watch gets a little grating but it still beats office work, store clerking, library research, so we persevere as cheerfully as we can.

With the engine on conversations in the engine room are out, though trust John's flirtatious nature to persevere as well. I rarely can go in there without his warm glance being bolstered by quick squeeze of my hand, a quick peck on lips, or touches that become increasingly close. It surprises me how affectionate John is. Even in the most innocuous moments, he can't pass by without his hand touching my back or hip, or stand close without being in physical contact. This is encouraged when he quickly learns I'm an affection junkie, returning the favor by trailing my finger down his arm in passing or sneaking up behind him for a quick squeeze when the opportunity presents itself.

It is further encouraged when a more extensive discussion about birth control and recent sexual histories reveals how long it has been since the last time I was physically intimate with someone. Then the touches become intimate. What was a proprietary palm sliding up my waist becomes the feather-like grazing of the swell of my breast, the guiding hand on my lower back becomes the stroking hand over my backside. During one stolen moment of privacy we rediscover the sensitive spot where it joins the back of my thighs. As his fingers trace light circles over it I moan into his mouth and mold myself to him.

Only his quick reaction bracing us into the corner of the narrow computer lab keep us from being pitched into the monitors as the ship rolls unpredictably in the swell.

That's something they don't discuss in all those pirate romances.

"Wasn't that supposed to happen sooner? Opportunely throwing me into your arms *before* we got to this point?" I ask as we cling to each other, cracking up.

He escalates, so I escalate. The old t-shirts, worn thin, are faint protection from soft raking of my nails down his chest. I find the spot to nuzzle under his jaw that elicits the most alluring noise, somewhere between a growl and a purr. The catch of his breath as my fingertips trail down his stomach is heavenly and my hand sliding smoothly up the inside of his thigh can bring him to a complete halt, his fingers digging into my skin as a primitive need flashes in his glacial blue eyes.

He was warned, I am competitive.

It's juvenile, I know, sneaking about to snatch moments thrill-filled necking, but my God it's fun. Maybe because it's been so long since I was with someone like this. His strength and gentleness, the texture of his skin, the shape of his male body, all warm and powerful and vital under my hands, the sound of his breath in my ear, the light in his eyes, somehow both spirited and sure. Something in him so richly, elementally alive. It's an almost painfully fierce pull I don't even consider denying.

It's just been too long, that's it.

With so many people in such a small space, a burgeoning affair can only go undetected for so long, even for people who are being discreet. In John's and my case it lasts about three days. I begin to suspect we have been outted when Alex becomes rather short with me one watch over instruction with the sextant, giving up her half-hearted attempts in short order. I try to not be paranoid and chalk it up to the trickiness of the instrument combined with the grind sailing has been since we left the D.R.

Over dinner that evening, I ask if she wants another crack at it. "I'm going to try shooting some stars this evening if you're interested in some extra practice."

"I'd have thought you'd be too busy doing him." She rejoins sullenly, glaring at her father at the opposite table.

...

"Wow." Kevin says in the silence, "That's awkward."


	5. Chapter 5

_Part V_

I takes a bit for the awkward silence to spread across the two tables and Alex makes use of the time to make her escape, clambering behind people on the bench against the wall of bunks. Not quite as elegant an exit as she would want, I'm sure.

A couple seconds later I hear John's deep voice drop a full octave. "What." Doctor Randall quietly confirms the exchange to John's swiftly-becoming murderous countenance. "Alex!" His voice is a bear-like snarl from between gritted teeth.

But Alex is already striding towards the passageway to the focs'l as John begins to get up from the table.

"Just let her cool off." Greg tries to counsel his friend.

"She's gotten away with this crap long enough."

I try to head him off as well. "John, it's o.k."

"My kid, my call," he growls, following his daughter down the passageway and slamming the bulkhead door shut behind him.

After determinedly sitting through the remainder of dinner with the obligatory, "So…how about them Nicks?" segue, I get as far away from the forward part of the ship as possible. If we had not been handling so much sail with evening coming on, I would have gone up a mast. Dr. Randall catches me in a few moments of solitude near his cabin aft.

"You alright?" he asks in his most paternal tone, seeming as grandfatherly as a girl could want when she's upset.

"Yeah. Yeah, this is just my first time dating someone with a kid. This is not exactly how it is supposed to go I take it?"

"Well my understanding is not getting on with the offspring is fairly common, though most are not usually penned up together onboard ship at the outset."

"I am *so* sorry I caused a disruption to the crew."

"First of all as crew conflicts go, this is fairly minor and well-contained. It has not interrupted ship's operations and at worst, we'll have to switch Lexie out of your watch. Secondly, you did not cause this dear girl. I did. I knew there were difficulties, but nothing like this. I should have anticipated it, but it's just been so long since I dealt with teenagers and Alex..." he shakes his head. "Well, I always had the impression that she was sheltered by her mother too much, but John went along with it because he was so protective of her."

"I've never asked, how do you know John?"

"I knew his brother Michael first." He settles back against the racks lining the passageway. "Met him while I was teaching at the BNRC. Real tight ass, out to have the perfect career. When I met John later I assumed he was of the same mold. He was part of a transport my ship was running back from Granby. On leave in Gibraltar John got himself in a spot of trouble with the local police. I bailed him out. Favor to a fellow officer, you understand. And over the next few hours, and several drinks, I found he wasn't like his brother at all. He isn't in the military for the career advancement so much as it just suits him. Real down to earth, straightforward, loyal to his friends and comrades, good instincts. Quietly cock sure, but nothing he couldn't back up. He's always had a bit of the loner in him and that's come out more in the last several years, but while he was in he knew how to be one of the lads as well as lead from the front, a very difficult balance to strike. Most can't. And he was good to Dianne and Lexie once he settled down a bit and he tried to be after things...after the divorce. John's a good man. He's in a difficult situation, but you couldn't do better for yourself."

"We're just dating. Sort of."

"Right," he says cynically as he moves past me to the ladder. "But if your grades slip I'll have you both in my office. Understood?"

"Sir."

After a few minutes of solitude, I head up into the doghouse to take out a sextant to plot our position. Using one, measuring the precise angle of important stars and planets to the clean line of the ocean's horizon through a tiny lens while the ship is in motion, requires one's complete focus. Mapping and plotting is a puzzle that typically keeps me happily absorbed. However my first run has me quietly swearing over the chart. Twenty two miles off the GPS. I dash outside to rapidly shoot another set of stars while the horizon is still a faintly visible line in the west.

"Can someone record the times and angles on these for me?" I ask the deck at large.

"Sure." John's sits on the equipment locker behind me with the notebook and jots down the times and angles as I read them out. Afterward he waits patiently in the doghouse as I run the numbers and plot our position again. Five miles off the GPS, closer than the discrepancy in the dead reckoning based on our last known position and time and direction traveled. But instead of the quiet little glow of pride, there is just a knot in the pit of my stomach.

After I report my findings to the Captain, John asks me down into captain's cabin. He then reaches up to shut the skylight, basically announcing to the quarterdeck that we want privacy, but there is no door to the cabin itself so our voices are still hushed.

"Look John, I understand how tenuous things are between you and Alex and I have no interest in screwing that up. I think it best if we didn't..."

"Whoa," he says pulling me down to the padded bench along the aft wall. He takes my face in his hand, his long fingers wrapping around the back of my neck as his thumb grazes my cheek. "Alex and I had problems long before you came along. If it wasn't you it would be something else. This was just another excuse to have a go at me, which she did through you and I'm sorry you got caught up in our bullshit. I love Lexie, she's everything that I come home to, but I really like you and I want to see where this goes."

It's not an eloquent oath of eternal adoration and devotion, but it's John so it's the solid realism that comforts. Less style, more substance. That and the reassuringly sensual kiss, of course.

"Sorry..." I say as move into his arms, snuggling against his warm, strong chest, listening to steady thunder of his heartbeat, "...I just feel like a catalyst for trouble sometimes."

"*You* do?" he says with incredulity, his voice resonating dully beneath my ear, but he holds me quietly for the moment. God, he smells nice. Beneath the salty tang of sweat there is a scent like fresh tilled earth warming in the sun.

"Can I ask what happened?"

I feel his ribcage expand and contract under my cheek as he takes a deep breath. "Not pretty. She's hold up in her bunk right now, having a good cry. I may have confronted her a few truths she was not ready for."

I pull back a bit to look up at him, "Can I ask what?"

He looks rueful, "Well, for starters I told her the truth about the divorce. At the time we told her that it was a mutual decision so she wasn't torn between the two of us. Though Lexie ended up blaming me anyway because I was gone so much to begin with. Dianne may have shifted the blame onto me a bit too. Not consciously, just in the way she spoke about the situation, me. Mind you, she had plenty of ammunition saved up."

_And as a conflict-avoidant person, she was probably happy to shift the blame onto someone hundreds of miles away rather than deal with her daughter's hurt and anger in her face._ But I don't need to say that.

"What do you mean?"

John pulls back a bit to look at me more easily.

"You've done the math and figured out I was pretty young when Lexie was born."

"Twenty, a year after you went in."

"She was unplanned. As was marrying Dianne."

"Oh."

"Dianne and I had been on again off again for years, but I did...well, we might have made it down the aisle eventually. But Granby was my first extended tour in country, not to mention in a combat zone, and I guess she panicked. I came home to find out I was going to become a father."

"So you "did the right thing."" I say, not mentioning that every single couple I knew that "got married for the baby" got divorced for themselves.

"I told her and myself that we were just rushing the end result anyway, but the truth was…" He just shakes his head. "You always hear all those stories about how when the person holds their child for the first time, suddenly everything changes and they settle down and become the perfect parent? When I held Lexie for the first time and all I could think was "All babies look like Winston Churchill.""

I strangle the snort of laughter. "Sorry."

He just shrugs with a sad smile. "My reaction at the time was about the same, much to Dianne's disappointment. And much to her disappointment I avoided being a father as much as possible. Drank too much, found any excuse I could not to go home at night. And…well, there were a few leaves where you either walked out a boy scout or you walked out a bastard and either way you felt like shit."

"Say no more."

"Yeah. I was a general all-around git until Lexie was about a year and a half. I came home late and Diane read me the riot act, again, only this time threatening to take Lexie and live with her Mum which in the heat of it I said would be just fine by me, it hadn't been my decision to have her anyway. She went in the bedroom and slammed the door and I went to sleep on the couch. And Lexie woke up, slept through the whole argument, but she wakes up just as I'm going to sleep. And Diane's not coming out, so I go get her, check her nappie and get her some milk. I'm just sitting there holding this tiny little thing, and I realize she has Diane's eye colour, but she has my mother's eye shape and eyebrows, and she has Diane's nose but my ears. And yet with all these different pieces of us, she was Lexie. All her own...And as I am sitting there marveling at this little wonder of creation, she reaches right up and grabs my nose." He mimics the motion.

I laugh, I can't help it but I don't feel bad because even he is smiling as he continues, "So I said, "Oh, it's going to be like that, is it? Fine." I flipped on the telly and we both got some kip. Diane came down the next morning and found Lexie sleeping on my chest. She had a picture of it for years. Things got better after that. Came home at night, worked on being a good father, a good husband. I didn't take another drink for years, and even now I make sure it's only one or two socially. But whenever there was a fight, Diane always brought up those first two years to club me over the head with. Did it during the divorce too, even though I did not touch the stuff after...Anyway, I thought that was just between Diane and I. That Lexie had … Having a glorified parking attendant for a Dad isn't exactly something a little girl can look up to."

Everyone needs to be cherished and everyone needs to be believed in but how much we need those things differ. Women need to be cherished more and men need to be believed in more. A woman that is not reminded that she is special and precious is sad and hungry creature, and if a man does not get that sort of faith and admiration from his family, a piece of him is missing. And he will either go looking for it elsewhere, or slowly collapse in on himself.

"But I just found out she told Alex about those first two years. And what I had said that night."

"Oh, for fucks sake."

"So I had to assure her all over again that I wanted her, that I loved her, that I had spent years trying to get my family back because I loved her. And for all that I got to listen to the same broken record about how "No, I didn't because I was never there.""

"But you're here now."

"That's what I said. She won't let up on me, but anything that might be seen as my world not revolving around her isn't allowed either. I'm done with that. I told her she made no fucking sense at all, that if she wanted to have a relationship with me she knew where to find me, and walked out." He releases a deep breath of tension. "I don't hate Dianne for what she did. She loved Lexie as much as I did and did what she thought was best for her. I know Alex is still grieving and so her mother is a saint now, I understand that. But I can't play these games anymore and I refuse to remain a monk in the memory of a woman who left me eight years ago...I still feel like a first rate shitheel, though."

There's a quiet knocking outside the curtain closing off the captain's cabin. "Uh...John?" It's Jackie, one of the members of C Watch. "Captain thinks we can give the engines a rest for a while."

"Right," John replies, disengaging from me."Be right there."

"Do you want me to get the prop?" I ask.

"Yeah, thanks."

"John, I'm in a little over my head with the parenting thing, I won't lie." I say as I follow him out, "But it seems to me that you really didn't have a lot of choice. Neither one of you could go on stuck in this pattern."

He stops to take his ear protection from the overhanging pipe above the engine room door. "I just have a bad feeling that bumping the needle means the end of the record."

I don't have anything to say to that, but I squeeze his shoulder before he's swallowed up by the roar of the engines and I go up to adjust the pitch of the propeller so that it won't be a drag in the water. Hopefully we can keep the engine off and stay under sail until we reach Port au Prince tomorrow. I could use the work.

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

_Part VI_

The main commercial harbor in Port au Prince is used to large container ships, so the barks of the fleet like the _Cuauhtemoc_ (Mexico), the _Elissa _(out of Galveston), and _Gloria_ (Columbia) as well as the full rig _Cisne Branco_ from Brazil can use the slips and quays, but the smaller brigs and schooners have to moor in the harbor. Luckily, it turns out the Captains were doing more than drinking rum in the D.R. and have arranged a small fleet of boats to move to three or four ships at a time to offload our cargo onto shore. So even more than Samana I am drawn back to old sailing days as we rig a line from the winch through a pulley hung from the tops'l yardarm to quickly lower our medical and sanitation supplies on waiting zodiacs and dingys of our sister ships, watching the small boats race among the large ones as the bring our goods to the docks.

The problem is what happens to the cargo once it hits the ground. Haiti's infrastructure was week to begin with, and the earthquake and resultant political infighting has only resulted in supplies rotting in warehouses for weeks or months before reaching the dozens of refugee camps in and around the city. Some of the ships were able to arrange a few trucks, either respectable rentals or calling in favors, but John and some of the other members of the fleet are being sent on a recce to find out who needs what and how to get it there as we offload. Once I see the other members of the recon team when the boat comes to pick John up, I have every confidence in their success. Upright, solid, extremely assured working competence reflecting the air of career military.

As we finally take the liberty boat ashore in the late morning, Kevin taps my arm.

"She's riding higher in the water."

I look back at the _Jones_ and I would swear he is right, not much, a foot or two, but that's impressive considering she isn't a cargo vessel. I look Kevin dead in the eye and we say in excited stereo, "I wonder how fast she can go now?"

We were supposed to be tasked out to various camps, but when we arrive at the docks, puzzling over the odd request to wear our foul weather boots, we're told to sit tight. Word quickly passes that a storm hit and flooded out a couple of the lowing lying camps in town, destroying many of the tents families had been living in for months. In a couple weeks, August brings the official start of hurricane season. These people need real shelter. Barring that, they need to get to higher ground.

This is where you thank the Gods for military people. Instead of waiting on the politicians dicking around, after a brief sitrep with the recon team, a representative from the camp, and the U.N. coordinator, we are divided up into crews to help the existing volunteer corp and U.N. troops pack and move the camp in the most danger.

Only several thousand people. No sweat.

"But first your team is going to take the trucks and move the supplies up to the new location. I don't trust leaving them here on the docks." I hear the Captain say as the coordinators walk by.

"Black market?" John asks.

"That and the government," the local camp representative says, waving at one of the large warehouses. "Once your supplies go in there my friend, they don't come out again. If you have your paperwork, I suggest you get them out of here as soon as you can. I have sent people to meet you at the new location to help unload. We'll take the other six teams and get things started on this end."

Port au Prince brutally combines Old World aspirations with harsh New World realities. Parts of the city are filled with 18th century colonial architecture with their beautifully manicured properties edged by the decaying remains of 1920-style apartments, shops, and office buildings crammed onto city streets that remind me of inner-city Los Angeles, only the signs are in French rather than Spanish and every spare inch of sidewalk is taken up with street merchants hawking their wares. From there civilization quickly fades into neighborhoods of slums and ramshackle shops.

But in the middle of this wreckage of western culture is just wreckage. Abandoned buildings with no roofs stick out of heaps of rubble yet to be cleared away after six months. In fact it looks as though the only clean up that was done was to make the streets passable.

Yet life goes on. The farmers and merchants are here, people are shopping, even if they are going back to a tent or a plastic tarp over a cobbled together wooden frame. Kids run around in the street as cars and bikes try to thread their way through the crowd. Through these little things you hold onto hope, as I guess they must, because when we arrive at the camp I need all the hope I can get.

The only thing I can think is that someone stopped Heracles cleaning the Augean stables half way through. Parts of the camp are still ankle deep in mud and the smell from the waste pits and latrines that were flooded hits like a wall. Some parts of the camp only the ragged shells of a tents or the collapsed framework of a shelters stand empty, families already gone, hopefully moved by friends or family to a safer location.

We just have to move the rest of them.

Alex has slowly been getting more and more twitchy until, at the sight of the camp, she finally erupts. "I don't get it! I thought there had been billions of dollars in donations! Where did it all go?"

"Most of that hasn't been delivered." Rachel replies.

"I heard only four nations had actually come through. Estonia, Norway, Brazil, and Australia, I think." the steward Lauren cuts in.

"Yeah, and of the private donations, only 30% of it has actually made it this far because of the government is in such disarray, organizations like the Red Cross are waiting until they actually have a plan for recovery before handing anything over."

Alex is utterly staggered, "But...how...?"

"We can't." Kevin says, "We just try to fix one little part of it. C'mon."

Rachel and Lauren both speak French, Lauren even taking an interest in the native Creole, so they take the lead in organizing us and the families in our assigned section. Kevin manages in his amazing way to cross language barriers and organizes the kids into a little troop of helpers, moving from "home" to "home" until the families have packed all their worldly possessions in a few bags, suitcases, or trunks and wait for the trucks to arrive. We take a break and wait with them on the grass in front of the camp, sharing bits of our lunch and hearing their stories. So many lost in those terrible moments, and so many saved. One of the little boys, now learning to play cat's cradle with Alex and Rachel, was pulled out of grocery store near the body of his mother. He is staying with his aunt. One woman spent weeks in the hospital after being rescued from the rubble of her house, and after spending months in the camps, she confesses she sometimes wonders what she was saved for.

"You were saved because it is God will." The old lady I was just sharing my PB&J with interjects as Lauren translates. "It is God will. I've seen good times, bad times, come and go. I'm still here." she says, the statement of fact reason enough for her being. "I'm still here."

The simple fact of being, that essential tenacity is in most everyone we meet over the next couple days. Many hold out hope that with a new administration, something can be done. Many have spent so long in the camp they have resigned themselves to living in them forever. But all of them are still *here*.

Over the next couple days we work almost non-stop, moving a seemingly endless migration of people to their new camp upland, and return to the ship to drop into our bunks at night. I become so used to the conditions on the ground, it's the comparative luxury of the ship that becomes strange. Safety in the camps in not assured, rape has already been endemic, so the Captain orders that at least the girls go back to the ship at night. It's sexist, but I see his point. Though threats follow that we'll leave all the men there and sail off to Jamaica in the _Jane Paulette Jones. _

I see John only in passing as he is ferrying either people or supplies "up the hill", or running the medical team assembled from the fleet's compliment of doctors and EMS personnel to various outlying camps for much needed medical clinics. Medication is in high demand on the black market, he tells me after I notice the outline of a pistol shoved in the back of his trousers under his T-shirt. "...usually by the clinics it was stolen from."

"Shit. Is it that bad?" I ask, touching his waist.

He frowns with an amused dismissal that is less than convincing as climbs into the cab of the truck. "Probably not, but it doesn't hurt to have a little extra security. Don't leave home without it. Don't worry, love." He waves almost cheerily and is off again.

He and his mates have a job to do and they're getting it done. Clean and simple.

Alex watches her father leave. "Does he ever slow down?"

"Apparently not." I chuckle.

"I didn't expect him to be so into this. I thought...I dunno."

I turn to walk back to the tents, "Alex, you've seen the news, all those natural disasters? Who are the first group of people to arrive on the scene in all those countries? The military of some nation or another. For a career military person, war is actually a minority of their career, or at least it was until recently. Most of their time is spent running their unit and their base, training, and doing public service stuff like this. From what I know of your Dad, limited acquaintance as it is, I think he needs to be useful. Weird as it sounds, I think this is the happiest I have seen him." I don't mention the sneaking suspicion that he is also enjoying leaving behind navigating the rough waters of the family drama for a bit to throw himself into simple and effective problem solving. Unconsciously, but enjoying it all the same.

"Huh, yeah, I guess."Alex hunches her shoulders stiffly as starts to get her sulk on, following me back to the tents.

"Except when he is getting along with you, like when you guys were watching the dolphins that first time. "Lexie is everything I come home to." That's what he told me."

She stops dead. "He said..."

"After you guys had that big fight."

"He really said that?" She walks on as that one takes time to sink in. "I'm uh...sorry I said what I said. It wasn't any of my business."

"It's your Dad. Of course it's your business. You were just really rude about it."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"It's o.k. Apology accepted. We're cool as far as I'm concerned."

"Cool."

I don't belabor the point and so the silence stretches on for a while.

"I was thinking," she blurts again, watching the kids playing soccer in the space beyond the line of people waiting for the next transport. "A lot of these kids are not going to be able to walk into town to go to school now. I know some of the parents are talking about making a little school room for them up there. Someone should get them notebooks and pencils and pens and stuff. Maybe get the teacher one of those rolling white boards or something."

"That's a good idea. So go do it."

"Well, I thought that maybe the captain could organize..."

"The captain is busy organizing all of this. You see the need, you have the time, so go do it. Find out from the teachers what they need, find out if there is a store you can buy the stuff from, run around the fleet taking a collection and go get it."

"I couldn't just ask people for money."

"Everyone is here helping out, I think they understand. Look, if you're shy, just rope in some of your friends from the _Spirit_. I'm sure some of them aren't and many hands make light work."

Damn me if by the time we got back to the ship Alex wasn't holding a wad of cash and a shopping list, looking speculatively at the ship's library against the back wall of the main cabin asking if we really needed all the books?

"They're learning French, Alex."

"Not all of them. Some of the high school kids are learning English as a second language. We could give them a couple books. If it's o.k. with you sir," she asks Greg.

He considers the wall of shelves behind the dinner tables, pulling one of two out from the recreational section. "I have to clear it with the ship's owners, but I can't see why we can't throw in some of these. Here." He throws a Chris Ryan novel at her. "It's rubbish, but I'm sure some boy will enjoy it. Good idea, Alexandra."

She blushes and then grins in surprise and pleasure before heading back to her bunk to text her friends on the other ships.

When we return to the ship the following evening, a space for a couple dozen students has been allotted in one of the storage buildings in the new camp, meaning the school room with its new white board will be guarded with the camp supplies. It's surprising that there are so few students, but the good news is that many children were sent to stay with relatives in town so they could continue school where they were. The bad news is many children are not going to school at all but trying to earn money for their families. We try not to dwell on that as Alex basks in the group praise of her success.

John, finally come home to roost, practically glows with pride watching her collect her "attagirls," but as they have not spoken since the night before we arrived he hangs back, unsure. He looks exhausted and disappears soon after dinner to hit the rack. I wonder if he has slept at all in the last three days…and just what has he been up to?

Air does not move around much below decks, and in the little six and half by three feet bunk it moves even less. With the hatch right above us in the fosc'l we have it a bit better than the rest of the ship, but when the night is close and the ship moored it still can get stuffy. They tell you to bring bed sheets, but in this heat I just use my sarong as minimal coverage for the sake of decency. On my first voyage I quickly got in the habit of only closing my curtains so that they covered my middle, and potentially naughty parts of me, so that I got what little fresh air came down the ladder on my face and my feet. It also allowed me to be more aware of what was happening on deck. Ready to lend a hand, even if it is in my skivies.

So John did not pass unnoticed when he looked down the ladder at Alex' bunk and then mine. I'm already half way up when he apologetically waves me back. I motion him to come down. A token protest is noted and dismissed before John slips down the ladder quickly with silent grace, padding on the balls of his bare feet like a cat. After glowering in annoyance as I ruffle his sleep mussed hair, the fine feathers of it sticking up at odd angles, he follows me back into the galley and waits above with a quizzical expression while I go into the cold locker in the hold below.

And hand up two longneck beers.

He has them threaded between his long fingers as he helps me up the ladder and then heads back up on deck while I make a quick stop by my bunk again.

He's opened them by the time I join him in the bow.

"I won't tell if you won't."

"Ooh. You are a naughty girl."

I'd forgotten what sensual little dance it is to have a man light your cigarette, a glance meeting briefly in the firelight and your hands gently steady his as he offers the flame you breathe in through the smoke. I watch him light his own and exhale a stream of smoke into the dim light of the port. There is a purposeful snap in his movements, a tension that is radiating off him even as he stares out into the blackness beyond the harbor.

"I figured you could use it, but you vanished before I could offer."

"I was knackered."

"You looked it, you still do. Alex did good, huh?"

"Yeah." The pride warms his voice even as he demurs. "She can be stroppy as hell, but she's a good girl at heart. She always was."

"So am I going to hear what you have been up to?"

He appraises me for a moment. "Running a taxi service for the medicos, putting up Nissen hut, delivering supplies...Raiding the warehouses on the docks." I can practically hear the smirk in the dark.

"You raided a warehouse?"

"Someone had to." He takes a drag on his cigarette. "Especially for the camps out beyond town. Sure, where the media is they get what little does come through but some of the other camps out in the field are getting by on next to nothing. So we "liberated" some supplies for them."

By_ "we"_ I assume to be the group of ex-military he left the harbor with two days ago. "You should have told us, we could have helped."

"Best to keep it to ourselves. Less people know, less blame to spread around if things went balls up. And, no offense, but we know what we're doing."

"None taken. So how did you do it?"

He shrugs. "Paul, he's on the _Elissa_, and I cut some chain link fence at the far end and generally created mayhem, leading the security and the police on a merry chase while two other teams ran in the front gate and then out again with two truckloads of food and whatever they could lay their hands on in twelve minutes. The guards at the gate woke up the next morning with a headache, and it was little tricky timing it so they could get back out without being seen, but honestly, I've had harder training exercises." He says derisively as he flicks his ash out in to the harbor. "The problem is that even if they emptied those warehouses, it's not enough. These people need homes again."

"Even if we had the material, half of them were squatters to begin with no claim to any land to build a new home on. And most of where they could build government housing is in private hands. Until the Haitian government decides what it is going to do about the land, and get the rubble cleared.…John, you went above and beyond the call. You did good." I kiss his cheek and run the backs of my fingers along the bristle of a couple days worth of stubble, feeling the muscle twitch in his jaw. "What's really got you up?"

He is silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is pitched so low I have to strain to catch it. "I haven't worked with a team like that in a long time."

"Since you left the Army?"

"Yeah," he replies quickly as he moves away to lean against the bowsprit. "Yeah."

I wait.

"The last time, I, uh…When I got this," he motions toward his shoulder, the cigarette acting as an extension of his hand, "...I was the only one of my patrol to walk out."

"How long had you served with them?"

"14 months," he exhales, "…but one of them, Steve, I bumped into him in Kuwait and then caught up again...later. He was my best mate."

I set my beer and cigarette down on the metal step leading up to the bow and whisper "I'm sorry," as I give John a hug. He returns it one handed as he rests his chin and then his cheek on my head. His grip steadily intensifies until he is crushing me against him, shaking almost imperceptibly as he takes a deep breath.

"D'you want to talk about it?"

"No." His voice is rough, "It's just.…He would have had a really great time last night." I wait him out again, but there is nothing but the feel of him clinging to me tightly for a few moments more.

"Well. Offer's stands," I say after he relaxes his grip.

He sniffs a bit before responding. "Thanks." His hand slides up the back of my neck and I can taste the salt on his lips in the dark.

Along with tobacco I can taste as his tongue brushes against mine. "Mm. I forgot what cigarette kisses taste like." I say, chuckling as I pull back after a couple moments.

"These were your idea."

"Admittedly so, but perhaps in the future we shouldn't mix one activity with the other."

"Well..." he says regretfully, taking a deep draw from the last of the fag before flicking it out over the water, "It was hard enough quitting the first time, so we should probably not do this again. Unless you smoke after sex, of course." I can practically hear his eyebrow arching flirtatiously as he makes the desperate segue.

I suppress the wince and make a mental note to hint not to litter later as I move back to my beer and cigarette. "Uh...no. I always felt if you had to smoke after sex, you were doing it wrong."

"No, no, you're supposed to say..."

"I don't know, I've never checked." I finish with him before continuing speculatively, "Though there was a little smoke after the fire."

"The what?"

"Uhm. It's something that happened with a previous...does it bother you to hear stuff like this?"

"Of course. I expect every woman to come to me virginal and pure wrapped in a chastity belt and corset two inches thick." His deadpan delivery is positively enviable.

"I always heard you Brits were kinky..."

"Not as kinky as you apparently. Out with it."

"Well, in my younger days I had a futon and I used old wine crates as my bedside tables. I had prepared a romantic evening for my boyfriend at the time, with the wine and the candlelight. Note the candlelight. In the course of the evening's activities we got sort of turned around, and he was, *ahem* taking a trip south of the border. And while I'm enjoying myself with my head hanging off the foot of the bed, I open my eyes slightly and think, "Hm. It's a little bright." But I don't think anything of it and close 'em again. A couple minutes later, I open my eyes and, "Wow. It really is bright." I look up, or down, over his shoulder. And his foot has pushed one of my pillows over a votive candle on the bedside table and there is this four foot pillar of flame in corner of my bedroom." I take a last drag and a last swig before dousing my smoke in the dregs of my beer.

"What did you do?" The incredulity competes with the laughter in his voice.

"I reached over him, grabbed the pillow and threw it out into the hall. Fortunately, my place was all tile and hardwood, so I just ran after it and stomped it out."

John snorts as he starts to lose it.

"When I got back to bed, my boyfriend just had this dazed expression on his face and he said, "When you popped up with your eyes so big like that, I thought I had done something really amazing!""

When John really lets go he has the most remarkable laugh. A baritone chortle that is the single most adorable sound I have ever heard. Tall dark and handsome? Whatever. Ex military with all the honor and assurance that entails? Sure. Intelligent, warm, kind, gentle, sensual, strong? Yeah, O.K. Laugh like that? My doom is sealed. Damn the man.

After a while, the laughter subsides into a chuckle. "You are…" His words end in a kiss that is such a startling blend of warmth and affection, I don't know what to do but be swept along by it until the affection becomes sensual and his lips part from mine to wend a soft, tickling, trail down my neck. "So…do you want to see if we can set a fire without a candle?" he asks, his voice a velvet purr in my ear as his hand slides down my waist to my hip.

We are about to climb up the stored boats to the sail rack when we both freeze. There's an odd lap of waves out of rhythm with the harbor. A faint slap against a hollow metal hull. There is a boat next to the ship. John and I look at each other in the darkness.

"Stay here." There are certain tones of voice you do not question. That was one of them.

I crawl into the dingy under the zodiac and squeeze myself up against the hull. I almost peek out when someone walks by, until I hear them. A low murmur of Creole. I hold my breath and pray not to sneeze or do something similarly stupid until they pass what seems like hours later. It feels even longer before I hear John whisper my name.

"Here." I start to slide as quietly as I can out from the boat.

He holds up a hand to halt me. Then waves four fingers in a circle. _There are four of them on deck_.

"The watch!" I hiss, referring to our shipmates who were standing watch aft to make sure the ship did not shift on its moorings.

He places a finger to his lips and points below. Then motions for me to stay where I am.

I grab his hand and point aft to the Canadian schooner _Bluenose_ anchored a few hundred yards from us. Feeling like a dork I pat my chest and point again, then hold my pinky and thumb to my face like a telephone. _I can swim to the Bluenose and get them to call harbor patrol._

John wavers for a moment before motioning to me to come out. After I leave my sarong behind, he helps me out of the dingy and watches me climb over the railing.

He clasps my hand in an iron grip for a moment before we hear someone coming around the foremast. John vanishes aft as I lower myself over the side. I hang there as the steel stanchions cut into my fingers until the pirate, for that is what he is, passes.

Then I slide, quietly I hope, into the black. I stay under, feeling my way along the hull until I reach the bow where I surface and, seeing no one, strike out for the _Bluenose _in a quiet sidestroke.

Unlike the movies, real pirates of old and today were and are almost strictly low rent operations. In the past the pirate ships were not frigates like the _Black Pearl_. They tended to be sloops with shallow drafts. Light, maneuverable, easy to sail inside a reef or up a river to avoid pursuit. They would capture a small ship, pack them full of as much firepower and crew as they could bear and go after large, slow, lightly armed merchant vessels. The vessels have changed, but from what I have read of modern piracy, the principles remain the same. Small fast boats with extra crew to take over the larger vessels they capture, only with RPG's you don't have to muck about with mounted cannon. Somalia and Malacca Straights have proven it is still a highly lucrative business to the point of garnering investors in a kind of stock exchange. Also nothing new as many of the local politicians and businessmen of the New World of the 17th century turned a blind eye to it, if not had a stake in it. Given the situation in Haiti, what do these guys have to lose?

_But why us?_

After I think I have gotten 100 yards away from the _Jones_ I break into a racing crawl, ignoring an important piece of pirate lore as my mind races ahead.

They use small boats, and they usually use more than one.

I remember that when a small fishing vessel appears in my path. I was so focused on where I was going in the dark, my hand smashed into it before I knew it was there. I pull back and look up.

He does not speak, but the unmistakable sound of a pump action shotgun chambering a round makes his intent clear. I'd never be able to get deep enough before he let loose with a see-and-spray weapon.

Shit.

Two set of hands haul me bodily out of the water as the first keeps the gun on me. My hands and feet are bound in front of me with zip ties and a simple thin gag is tied in my mouth, as I sit there shivering in the night air, wearing nothing but a wet tank top and a pair of knickers.

Amateurs.

Like I really have a right to say that.

I'm told to "Behave yourself, and you go back to your friends, yeh?"

I'm too pissed off to be scared, but I also know what the pirates on the other side of the world are capable of. Hoping the extent of this venture is to strip the crew of what few valuables we have, I nod like a good little girl and wait silently as we return to the _Jones_. They cut the engine as we approach and fend off the hull of the bow.

With the deck of the Jones a good eight feet above me, I can't see anything but from the sounds of it, all is not going according to plan. There is thunder of stampeding feet and a low rumble of voices from below decks, punctuated by a couple shrieks.

"CUT YOUR ENGINE AND STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Dr. Randall roars from the quarter deck. His words are followed by several cracking-pops of gunfire.

I can't hear his verbal response, but his tactical one is quite audible as he returns fire. One, two, and a man is screaming. This is enough for my captors as they gun their engine and sheer away from the ship, hoping to escape notice.

_They are not letting me go._ They can't let me go if I have seen them. I start struggling and shouting bloody murder. One of them, belatedly realizing that simple cloth gags are pretty much ineffectual for cutting off sound, slaps me.

"Shut up! We'll let you go on shore...Though you might make this fucked up trip worth our while first." He weighs my breast in his hand.

My nerves crystallize in a flash freeze. And then everything vanishes into red rage.

Guns are a ranged weapon. Having it waved in your face certainly gives one pause, as it should, but if you are already inside their gun arm, as I am with this asshole, firearms suddenly lose a great amount of their usefulness. Though frankly given my state of mind, I don't think it would have mattered. I'm just trying to explain why I survived past the first minute because I don't remember much of anything beyond screaming like a banshee and flying at him with everything I had.

Everything happened so fast there wasn't even time to feel the pain of it. I only remember the sudden impact snapping my head sideways.

And the gunshot.


	7. Chapter 7

_Part VII_

Have I mentioned I have a glass jaw?

I was only able to piece together what happened after I left the ship through overhearing stories told to the Police and amongst the crew. John and Dr. Randall just shrugged off queries and I knew better than to try to pursue it. Maybe in a couple years or so it will be a story, but right now it was too fresh for them to want to recount for the masses.

John left four men on the deck, one of them dead, before dropping through the skylight on the quarterdeck to the aft cabin to retrieve the pistol he had brought with him. He then waited in his bunk for the pirates to take the Captain back to the cabin to open the ship's safe. They did and made the mistake of only sending one while four men using a variety of cheap assault rifles and pistols covered the crew which had been gathered in the main cabin. Five more moved throughout the ship ransacking the bunks for cash, travelers checks, credit cards, laptops, and cell phones.

After John and the captain quietly subdued his guard and another intruder that came to investigate, John went back up on deck to the focs'l hatch to quietly take out the two that had gone forward while the Captain cleared aft. Then John moved into the main cabin.

The need for stealth past, he drew his weapon and dropped one and then another that was trying to pull Jackie up to use as a human shield "without even blinking" as Will put it. This started a stampede of people trying to get out of the way while, with the best of intentions, some of the crew to grabbed the third gunman and wrestled him to the ground. This held John up as he tried to pursue the last who fled aft, probably hoping to get back the old fishing vessel that was moored to our stern.

By this time, Dr. Randall was in a firefight with it using a captured AK-47. John ran up the ladder of the main cabin to the wetlab and cut the pirate off from flanking the captain at the door of the doghouse. John was subduing him when one of the pirates that had roused himself after being knocked unconscious in the aft cabin came up behind him, gun drawn.

Then John heard the last voice in the world he expected say, "Stop!"

It was Alex.

Standing at the top of the doghouse ladder with a 9mm Glock knock-off, trembling just a bit, in her hands.

She had picked it up off the floor of the main cabin and when she saw the pirate come out of the aft cabin and up the ladder, she followed. John disarmed him and laid him face down on the quarterdeck before slowly, gently taking the gun from her hands as Kevin answered the radio call from the _Bluenose, _who, having no response to_ "What is your status, over?" _were asking "_What the hell was going on over there?_" John froze just as the Captain said he had heard the sound of a second boat moving away from the bow. And screaming.

It was snorting seawater that woke me. Sneezing and coughing it up, I lift my aching, ringing head from pool in the bottom of the boat as we bob gently in waves. I can't hear what they are arguing about, the shotgun had gone off practically in my ear, but something is amiss. Why aren't we moving? I pray that I have made the point that I am more trouble than a good time is worth and that they are just going to toss me out. Even with my hands and feet tied I could just "dead man float" until someone came and picked me up. Suddenly the boat rocks as two of them go over the side, swimming for shore as the third does something at the stern and then after a pause, follows.

What the...?

As I pull my gag off, I realize that the water which had been just high enough to cover my shoulder is now in the middle of my chest as I lie on my side. The dumbass shot a hole in the boat.

Well, max-nix. Hopefully they left a knife behind so I could cut myself free and swim back to the ship, or shore, or somewhere. If not, float.

I do not find a knife.

I do find that the scumbags have tied me to the engine.

Shit.

Oh…Fuck!

That's when I start screaming again. Not the angry, wildcat "I'm trying to get attention" screaming of before. I mean horrifically terrified "Oh God - please don't leave me here to die!" screaming. I grew up on a lake, swimming practically before I could walk. Knowing water as intimately I do, I have a healthy caution of drowning.

That caution was kicked into full blown panic when the boat started to slip under as water rushed over the stern.

The benefit or curse of panicking is that you hyperventilate which gives you a good lungful of fresh clean air to suck the O2 out of longer as water closes over your face and you are inexorably dragged under.

But what can you do but struggle? Trying to get your fingers into the knot that is pulled tighter as you are pulled deeper into the black and your lungs burn to exhale and take a breath. My movements start to fumble as my coordination starts to fade.

Suddenly something has grabbed me. In my panic I fight it blindly. I see a flash of pale flesh in the dim light, a light from above.

Wow. You really do see a white light.

I reach for it.

But something is tugging around my ankle, pulling me further down into the darkness as I finally let go. Exhaling my last gasp into the deep as the weight of water fills my lungs and I am free, floating.

The most frightening fact about drowning is that you retain consciousness after the water enters your lungs, your brain running on the leftover oxygen floating in your blood stream. So I can feel the arm around my chest and the air on my face as we break the surface. Air that I need so badly, but can't get to. I'm blacking out as I am hauled over a hard ridge which jams into my diaphragm so that, in the elegant position of being draped over the gunwale, I start coughing up the water from my lungs into the bilge of the second pirate vessel. Taking desperate, wheezing gasps with only half my lung capacity.

The boat rocks as whoever it was who cut me free and dragged me to the surface pulls himself over the side and then helps Kevin lift me into the boat. They try to help, but I slither-crawl away from them to the edge of beam from the hand-held spotlight, kneeling with my butt high in the air and my forehead on the deck as I spend what feels like forever retching up the water in my lungs, the taste of salt and algae in my mouth and burning my nose, until I can take 80% of a breath, still coughing as I roll over and see...

"J-John."

By the time Kevin has guided the old fishing boat back to the _Jones_, all the deck lights are blazing. Not only has harbor patrol arrived, but several ships of the fleet have sent boats to assist or simply to find out what happened. As he is immediately called aside to answer the Police's questions, John hands me over to one of the doctors of the EMS personnel who have showed up to treat the injured on both sides.

After wrapping a blanket around me and flashing the obligatory light in my eyes (_ow_), the doctor listens to my lungs and says there is nothing for it but time and more coughing. Then the puts a tongue depressor in my mouth and asks me to bite down. "Looks like the jaw is just bruised. Knocked a couple teeth loose, so you will be on a soft diet for a week or so, but you're very lucky. "

"It wasn't luck," I say thickly, looking in John's direction.

"True. If you really had been lucky, this wouldn't have happened at all. I have to go check on one of the Haitians before they send him ashore. Stay put."

My mind is still in free fall, just starting to be aware of what is going on around me, picking out random details in a sea of activity. I see John pull something from the back of his waistband and hand it to an officer. A graceless piece of back metal that I happen to know is one of, if not the, most reliable and accurate handguns in mass production: The Sig Sauer P-226, favored of several government forces, including the Finnish Army, U.S. Navy Seals, GROM, and...

"Sierra Leone." I blurt. I am relieved that which so much going in around me, no one noticed.

Soon I am the girl of the hour as another officer comes over the question me, sending a woman to question the most beat-up woman. I am in no shape to create a cohesive narrative, but she is patient and adept at guiding me through it a step at a time. John finishes and comes over to hear what happened after we parted ways on the foredeck.

I get to the part where I attacked my captor, and why.

"That almost got you killed," the officer comments.

"I was raped when I was 18. I swore that if it happened again someone was going to die. Either it would be him or it would be me, but somebody was going to die." I say flatly.

John blinks a few times as realization and sympathy flood his eyes. He takes a deep breath and sits down next to me, threading his fingers through mine and holding my hand tightly through the rest of the questioning. When the officer moves on, he brushes the hair back from my face with a gentle touch. "You alright?"

I wish I could take a deep breath, but I squeeze his hand instead. "Yeah….Thank you." I croak as he kisses my forehead. It sounds so inadequate. "Are you o.k.?"

"I'm fine." His expression is halfway between bemused and touched.

"Alex?"

He takes a deep breath before answering, a dark shadow passing through his eyes. "Shaken up, but alright."

"You should go to her."

"... I don't think you should be left alone." He looks concerned, confused, and a little bit hurt.

"I'm o.k. I may wake up screaming in a week, but right now I'm o.k. I do appreciate your concern John, I do, but your daughter probably needs you more right now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Go on."

He starts to kiss me, but remembering my jaw touches his lips to the corner of mine before moving off to find his daughter.

It takes forever for the police move through the vessel, gathering evidence, removing bodies (four), interviewing everyone on deck while they work below. The crew are in shock, some dazed, some with frayed nerves keeping them on edge, some in tears. "Freaked" would be the appropriate word. The Captain wanders among them, talking gently to those in the most need, a hand on the shoulder for those holding it together. Kevin gets a hearty handshake and praise for stepping up so quickly to help John get me back. At that reminder, he also gets a kiss on the cheek from me. Kevin may be a big kid, but he is also a good man.

I wish I had more to give, but I can only sit among them and hold Rene's hand as she periodically shivers and cries or is silent. John stops by a couple times to check on me before returning to Alex. By the third time, I have spread the blanket on the deck and curled up on it.

Some of the crew go to other ships for the night, too shaken to sleep on the _Jones_. After the police clear the scene, the Captain insists that some volunteers from the EMS crowd go down to mop up the bloodstains before we retire. It's a ship so everything is pretty easy to clean, but the sun is edging the horizon before we can go below.

My first stop is the shower to get rid of the salt. At best the freshwater shower only goes to a vaguely warm, but I stand under it for a long time anyway. When I come out, John is by Alex's bunk. I stay out of sight behind the foc'sl steps to give them some privacy.

"You should get some sleep, sweetheart."

"Is…"

"What?"

"Is that what you do?"

"…Yeah."

"And the people you…are they always like that? Hurting people?"

"Most of the time…I wish I could tell you it's that simple sweetheart. They tell me what I do is the for the best, but...sometimes I have to guess what the best thing is."

"…Even for girls that get angry at you for being out saving the world? "

"...Lexie, you are my world." John leans in to hug his daughter. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He holds her for a moment more before kissing her forehead and starting to move off.

"Dad...can you stay. Please?"

"Sure I can, baby. Sure." He strokes her hair."I'll be right here."

"Thanks."

He tucks her in and pulls the curtain to before taking the middle platform-step on the stair-ladder between his daughter's bunk and mine. I join him there in the pale morning light, touching his still bare foot with my own.

"If you say "Yipee-ki-yay, mother fucker" I will have to kill you," he whispers, looking down at our toes.

I smirk. I had thought of saying that, but "I was trying to find some clever way to bring up "Who Dares Wins.""

He doesn't look at me but leans back, sighing. "I was wondering when you would put that together. What finally tipped you off?"

"The 226. I should have started suspecting it when you mentioned Sierra Leone. I feel like such an idiot. But those two, and your reticence to discuss the latter parts of your enlistment, the vagaries. And then what you do for a living now and then what you were able to do tonight. You're in the 21st now, right? Albany Street?" speaking of one of the S.A.S. regiments of reservist Territorial Army.

"...Yeah. That's right."

I say nothing but take his hand. He can't talk about it, so I don't ask.

Instead after a few moments he leans forward again and says my name quietly. "...what happened?"

"Before?" He nods and then waits me out this time. "...I was dating someone, someone who was on the wagon for cocaine use when we started dating. And who fell of it one night. I was young, I had no idea there was something wrong with him. I just thought he was he was kind of "off" when he picked me up. And...things went from being fun to me being held down, screaming at him to stop while he just looked through me like I wasn't even there...Then as he passed out he said, "You'll have to remind me tomorrow, because we did some really kinky stuff tonight."...as if submission equaled wanting... It was so long ago, "date rape" wasn't even a prevalent term yet, so I didn't go to the police. I just never saw him again...It was a long time and a lot of therapy ago. I'm o.k. That is an oath I made to myself, but I'm o.k."

John takes me in his arms, holding me tightly and stroking my back. I don't know how much of it is for me or for him, but I relax into him, savoring his strength and his gentle kiss before I let him send me to bed.

At some point I wake, having rolled over on my bruised jaw. John's still there, staring off into the middle distance as he stands, or in this case sits, sentinel over his little girl. A father's duty, gladly given for perhaps the last time.

We remain in port for another two days before we are cleared to go. As we are an American ship, they are anxious to get everything squared away so that no blame can be laid on the Haitian government. We get visitors. The volunteers and organizers we were working with are sincere in their concern, but not surprised. Things are desperate here and many of the prisons were destroyed in the quake. The politicians express proper shock and regret such a thing would happen, while hinting less than subtly that if the Americans had come through with the promised funding, they would have been able to keep criminals off the streets.

John stays out of sight during these visits, letting Dr. Randall and the crew take the credit for repelling the boarding party.

I stay with him, not wanting to spend my 15 minutes of fame as "the plucky victim."

"Are you o.k.?" I ask as we hide out in wetlab. Since the attack John has been quiet, tense.

"I'm fine," he reassures quickly, squeezing my hand.

_I'm not an idiot._ "John, they threatened Lexie."

For a moment, his fingers almost crush mine as he looks at them. He says nothing. Now that the cards are on the table, he is clearly shaken but he doesn't need to say that.

"It's o.k. she's o.k. now." I reassure. Another hug, hugs are good. Even when you are being half smooshed.

"I never thought it would follow me," he murmurs in my ear. "I never wanted Lexie exposed to this. Christ, I used to get mardy over her getting vaccinated for school..."

"She's your little girl, of course you want to protect her. But she's a young woman now and it's a big world. Things happen everywhere. In Los Angeles, in London. You saved us, those men can't hurt us anymore. But," I pull back, touching his face. "...you can't keep the entire world out all the time. She has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders, something she clearly got from you. I think she's going to be o.k. John. It's going to be o.k."

He says nothing, but pulls me back into a long, fierce embrace that finally ends in a grateful look and a smacking kiss on the forehead.

The crew's reaction has been a little harder for John to deal with. Some, like Kevin and Lauren, have made a pointed effort to return to normalcy, but some have not. The odder responses range from being held in sort of a silent awe, to being excitedly grilled on his war experiences (fat lot of luck there), to being avoided outright. Unfortunately Rene is one of the latter group that is having a hard time being on a ship with a man she watched kill two people.

"He didn't have to do that! We could have just let them take our stuff and go. It wasn't necessary to kill them!" she hisses at Kevin, hoping to be out of earshot.

"We don't know that was all they were after Rene. Most of the pirates operating in the world seize the vessel and either ransom or murder the crew. They tried to use Jackie as a human shield. They almost killed _Kip_, they threatened to rape her. Do you really want to trust that they would have satisfied with your iPhone?"

Intellectually she understands, but she and a few others are not mollified, unable to reconcile the down to earth, quiet man they sit with over meals to the trained solider they saw that night.

I appreciate the idealism of their outlook and truly hope that someday we do live in a world where killing is truly abhorrent, but after 5,000 years of human history we have not been able to shake it. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Not that I think killing is hunky-dory in everyday society, far from it, but I can accept that a warm, vibrant man capable of such gentleness is also capable of killing to defend those he loves. Maybe it is because I come from a military family, or maybe because of my neo-pagan outlook, I don't have a problem reconciling life and death, creation and destruction, in the same person. Our destructive tendencies are an old, primal part of us that western society treats as a titillating, dirty little taboo to be horrifically fascinated with rather than accepted for what it is. The capacity doesn't scare me. We are all capable of violence. Some of us just deal with it more openly, and therefore walk a sharper knife edge, than others. John is still John to me, this has not changed how I see him.

Though I am forced to admit it the "the event", as it is swiftly euphemized, has changed how he sees me. When he isn't working or hovering about Alex, who she seems to be startled by but enjoying it, he's hovering around me. Not in obvious cloying solitude, but what I know amounts to that for him. The wicked flirtatious looks are replaced by concern, the obvious jokes replaced with "are you o.k.?", the playful hand on my ass with tender hugs and gentles touches on my arm.

I know it's irrational and utterly ungrateful on my part. After seeing the bruises on my pale skin in mirror I understand where he is coming from and intellectually I appreciate it. But after our first day at sea again, I find myself avoiding him. I tell myself his behavior has begun to grate, but the truth is harder to come to. The care in his voice drives a warm spike home in my chest and my heart freezes over in reaction. I can't take it right now. Part of me fights to be free of it as much as another part wants to fall into it.

No one is really fine. The weather is, though the breezes are a bit weak the second day out, resulting in a calm which keeps the engines on. However, between the silences and little knots of discussion it's clear morale has taken a hit. After a subdued lunch, the captain throws down his napkin and orders John the cut the engines while he goes above with A-watch to back the sails and angle the rudder in order to "heave to", bringing the boat to a halt in the middle of the wide blue sea.

"All you morose buggars OFF my ship. NOW!" he shouts down the stairs into the main cabin.

Normally a "Swim Call" would be greeted with shouts of joy and everyone rushing to their bunks to get into a swim suit and then up on deck fling ourselves off the side of the ship, but now people approach the rare recreation dutifully, the excitement building slowly in a low murmur.

When I come up and make my way to the science deck where they have slung a rope ladder over the side, I find everyone staring at me.

"Er...What?"

"You first."

_Oh good lord, they think I have a phobia. How redicu..._

_Oh...crud._

I do find myself hesitating over the dark blue water that is, for all intensive purposes, bottomless.

"Oh, fuck this."

I turn and march the bow, hearing the soft "aww" of disappointment turn into laughter and shouts of encouragement as I climb out to the end of the bowsprit and, before I can stop myself again, execute a perfect cannon ball. From then on it's an hour long free-for-all of splashing and laughing as people climb up on deck and throw themselves off in the most imaginative ways possible.

After some cajoling from his daughter and a couple others and what looks like an order from the deck, John appears his swim trunks (a sight that does set my heart racing and other parts of me a simmer) and waves us back before running out and doing a somersault off the science deck. After climbing the chains of the headrig, he attempts another off the bowsprit, but a friendly shove from Kevin results in something between a tuck and a sprawl and a very large splash.

Everyone is trying to keep from drowning while laughing, welcoming John Porter, Human Being, back into the fold as he playfully shoves his daughter under for giving him too much of a hard time.

The clouds on the horizon catch up to us in the evening as B-watch comes on, bringing with it spits of light rain and fantastic winds from our starboard quarter on a broad reach. As we are traveling with the current, the Captain takes the opportunity to see what the _John Paul Jones_ can really do. The watch, plus several volunteers who are eager to get in on the fun, move up and down the deck in their colorful foul weather jackets over their shorts or trousers, pulling on halyards and sheets to make clouds of canvas bloom in the grey light.

I take the first spell at the helm, but steering a ship is like a lot of things in blue water sailing: Equal parts skill and art. It takes a feel for how she is responding to the force of the water over her rudder, transmitted by the pressure and little jerks of the wheel spokes in your hands, and the forces on the sails above with an instinct on how best to handle her with a light touch to nudge her where she needs to be. Instincts and a light touch I really don't have.

"Alex. Take the wheel."

"You sure?" She says, watching the heel of the ship as she plows through the swell.

"You're better at this than I am. Go for it."

"I relieve you," she recites the formula, taking the wheel from my hand.

"I stand relieved," I reply before throwing myself on the deck to help pull the braces of the yard arms to so that the square sails are angled to catch the wind best.

_This is why I do it_, I watch the _Jones_ pick up speed, skipping lively through the waves as the watch moves forward to set the raffee, a small triangular sail at the top of the foremast. _Time doesn't move, but we do. No yesterdays, no tomorrows, just moments of action and reaction. The feel of the living rope in your hand, the living ship under your feet, as your watch works together to bring out her best. There is is no joy like sailing tall ship on a day like this. _

_John understands_, I think as I watch him and Will haul away at the raffee halyard. Though perhaps for him it is less about the poetry of motion and more about the simple challenge of having a job to do and doing it without complications. Or getting shot at.

As we walk back to the quarter deck to enjoy the ride, and I slide my hand in his and pull him aside for a quick kiss, savoring the feel of his soft lips on mine, the stubble of his chin against my skin. But only for a brief moment before moving away.

Sending mixed messages like that is not fair, I know it isn't, but it's all I can give and all I can take right now. More than that scratches the surface of something curled up and painful.

We strike the raffee in the dark and bring her speed down to something a little saner for night sailing, turning it over to C-watch and turning in at one. I feel the wind on my face coming from the focs'l hatch, staying in the moment of the motion of the ship and the sound of the ocean passing by the hull next my head as she rocks me to sleep.

Only to wake a couple hours later. Not screaming, but coughing and gasping for air. An ice pick of terror in my chest and a cold sweat on my skin. I manage to keep from throwing up and crawl up the ladder on deck to curl up into a ball against the cool hull as I struggle to escape their voices and the feel of his hands and the boat dropping out from under me, dragging me under and the water sliding over my face, filling my chest. I try to loose myself again in sounds of the sea slipping by and the wind in the rigging as I hang onto the edge of a scream by my fingernails. I feel it shredding at me as it seeks release, but it's all I have to hang onto.

Until John comes forward and, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulder, takes me below and back to the aft cabin. It is typically reserved for the Captain and Chief Scientist, but since this isn't a research trip and John is a friend of the Captain, he's enjoyed the privilege of a larger bunk. It's not quite twin size but enough for two. He practically pushes me up into it before he follows. Shielding me from the world, his arms gently capturing and folding me against him as he strokes my hair and murmurs random words of comfort as the dam of hysteria breaks and I shake and weep my fears out against his chest.

At the moment of flying apart the weight of reality in his solid, elemental being anchors me in infinite tenderness.

And then I sleep, deep and dreamless.

When I wake in the late morning light streaming through the skylight into the cabin, John is gone. As drained as I am, there is still some frustration there. Yes, I am that rare female that is "a morning person." I roll over and bury my nose in his pillow, hiding in his rich, earthy scent for a few moments more before I face the world. I run my fingers over his gear stowed away with precise efficiency. A picture of Alex, much younger than she is now but recognizable by her soft brown eyes and snub nose, is stuck into the edging of one of the two cubbyholes. Boots and foul weather gear on top of what must be his backpack in one, clothes and shaving kit in another. Nothing else but a copy of "Kim" from the ship's library that is tucked underneath the small leather bag. I pull it out and open it to the dog eared page:

_Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay out, with a hillman's generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badrinath—kings of that wilderness—took the first sunlight. All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at evening put on their jewels again._

He's hasn't talked about books much, but I can see where the story of the lone boy's adventures of street trickery and political intrigues in the rich landscape of Kipling's India would appeal to him. Perhaps he read it as a boy and is re-reading it now. Probably. I wonder what he thought of the Lama then, the compassionate and gentle father figure he did not have but seems to have tried to be for Alex.

I realize there's a lot to John I don't know, a rich but subtle texture you have to keep your eyes sharp to see.

It must be morning, but my wristwatch is in my bunk. I wander out into the main cabin.

In the middle of lunch.

In a t-shirt and underwear.

Oh gawd. We are "that couple" now. And we haven't even had sex.

But I wave back gamely as everyone just says or waves "Hi", accept Alex who looks away red faced as her father gets up to walk me back to my bunk.

"Greg said I can fill in this watch for you if you need more rest."

"I'm fine." I hug him tightly, my face in his neck as my hands slide over the strong muscles in his back. "You've been waiting for this haven't you?"

"You said it might take a week." He holds me close while his thumb traces my cheek.

"Thank you."

I have energy to sail the ship, but not much else making me quiet and shockingly docile at first, something that I know worries John even more. I try to reassure him that I am just tired and he tries not to fret, but the concern is still obvious in his eyes and he still approaches me as if afraid I'm about to break even further.

One can either thank the Gods or curse them for politics.

A day later over lunch, John tries to shy out of the debate that is obviously about to ensue by shaking his head and waving it off with the "This is above my pay grade" excuse.

I don't let him. "I agree that Saddam was a horrible tyrant and that the C.I.A. was part of the reason he rose to power and therefore he was to a certain extent our problem to fix, and the arbitrary line you all drew creating Iraq sort of made it partly your problem to fix, but look how much damage removing him did."

"You can't blame the military because Rumsfeld and that lot couldn't find their own arses with both hands and a map," he snaps.

"O.K. Whoa, stop. Let me make this perfectly clear: I am not blaming the military for anything in this discussion. We talking about the politicos only. You know I know that the military is there to protect their nation and protect people. This discussion is strictly about the political decisions of how the military is used and neither your country nor mine can keep being World Cops."

There a moment while he pauses, considering me quizzically, and then leaning forward again he steps in carefully. "I don't see why not. When we have the power to correct a situation, to save people from murder and abuse, don't we have a duty to?"

"But can we promise that to everyone? Look how hap-hazzardly it is applied. While we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Liberia begged for the U.S. help and we were "over extended" until public opinion embarrassed them into sending in a few Marines."

"You said you supported the invasion of Afghanistan."

"I did. We gave them thirty days to hand over bin Laden and they didn't. I understand the cultural imperative they were acting on, but the Taliban had to realize they were dealing with a much bigger playing field than just their culture and they should have handed the son of a bitch over."

"They couldn't get their hands on him even if they wanted to."

"Yeah, but they didn't want to."

"So use of military force is alright if you have a personal interest."

_Ouch._ "Well, isn't that how it is really applied? Only instead of it being the interests of the common citizenry, it's the interest of governments and their supporting corporate lobbyists? That's where it gets morally fuzzy, when "protecting the nation" becomes "protecting the nation's interests." Again, all respect to the military, we just dealing with the politics here and let's face it, the Banana Republics are still alive and well. They just go through the IMF and World Bank first. Most of the time."

"I'm not sure the Kurds would see it that way."

"Wouldn't they? Again, I'm not arguing that Saddam was a murderous bastard, but can you really give freedom to someone or is it something that has to be earned? Both your nation's history and mine are dramatically different, but they both prove the same point. It has to be earned. For us we seized it, for you all it was a long incremental progression towards democracy. It's not like Simon de Montfort arrived and said, "Congratulations, you're a parliamentary democracy" and you were. You guys had to fight for it every step of the way, for hundreds of years. Wouldn't the Middle East be more stable if we just got our sticky fingers out of their sovereign rights and let them figure it out for themselves? If the Iraqis had made the move to get rid of him as a people? Or three peoples as the case may be."

"And while we're sitting on our arses waiting for your social movement, what happens the people on the ground? You're alright with the Taliban shoving women into burquas and encouraging honor killings just for the sake of political stability so long as they don't bother you lot?"

"Of course I'm not o.k. with it, but you can't enforce a new cultural morality from the outside. The only way to do that would be to make Afghanistan the 51st state and even if we did, we don't have the manpower to police it so these things never happened. They have to reach gender equality on their own if it is to be accepted, for good, by the greater Afghan society."

"Don't you think if the Kurds in Iraq or Muslims in Bosnia or the Jews in 1930's Germany could have gained equality on their own they would have? The States had a war to free the slaves in the South, right?"

"One of the two big reasons, yes, but they still couldn't force the South to accept them as equals. Instead we ended up with 80 years of Jim Crow laws until the African Americans themselves stepped forward as a culture to take control of their social and political destiny."

"But if the States hadn't had that war, they would not have been free to march on Washington in 1963 would they? I have had to look people in the eye who's children, mother, fathers, have "disappeared", kids in the face that the only question they care about is who's territory is their flat in this week. Kids so blinded by what they live with day in and day out, the only thing they think they can do is join whatever group of unscrupulous bastards is willing to use 14 year-olds as cannon fodder. So I don't see that it is such a bad thing for some of us to come out from behind the newspaper, or our books, and do something about it. Maybe we can't make it perfect, but we can sure as hell give those in need a hand up."

What do you say to someone who has stared it in the face? Seeing no answer is forthcoming, John all but throws his coffee cup at the wash station and barely keeps from stomping as he goes up on deck.


	8. Chapter 8

_Part VIII_

No matter what legitimate ethical points one may have, there is no way to have that conversation with a serviceman without it being emotionally charged. Not to say that the points John made were invalid because of his investment in the topic. Far from it, I would definitely say he successfully argued his position.

Which is so totally hot.

It's just that no matter how strictly you define the topic to *not* include the military itself, the military is an inherent part of the discussion and soldiers tend to take their life's work personally.

_"Oh, and this calling you have? The organization you dedicated your life too? You've done more harm than good while your lives and honor are being exploited for less-than-savory political agendas. " _

It's *not* what you mean at all, but that is what comes across.

It's a minefield of loyalty, pride, and yes, heart.

And I did not just blunder into it. I grabbed a pogo stick and started jumping around.

Christ.

John's minor dig at my academic perspective, combined with the pointed use of the year of Dr. King's march, bears notice. John is intelligent and knowledgeable enough in talking to him I tend to forget that for all intensive purposes, he's a high school graduate stuck on a ship with a substantial number of academics. He doesn't strike me as someone who is insecure, but with emotions running so high after the event, and then my...picking a fight, I guess it got to him.

But even so, up until that moment he had been ... perfect.

_Fuck! Why did I do that? _

I spend the afternoon (metaphorically) thumping my head against a wall, hole-up in my bunk with my long neglected journal, scribbling madly, and occasionally tearfully, until the steady roll of the swell becomes the lurch and roll of chop and I am cast into freefall a couple times which results in a literal thumping of my head against the ceiling. I adjourn to the deck to be pensive, trying to come up with some answers. There no point in reopening the discussion if I don't have any.

John does not reappear at supper. Kevin tells me he's been below since early in the afternoon.

I close the door to the engine room as the _Jones_ takes a skip and fall. A crash is heard below followed by a roared "BOLLOCKS!" that reverberates impressively off the metal walls.

I hang my head down the hatchway into the engine compartment to find the engine cover is off and John picking up something from the floor.

"Hi."

He doesn't turn, but the muscles under his t-shirt bunch slightly as he growls a low "Hi."

"Is there a problem with it?"

"No."

"Maintenance?"

"Yeah."

"But it just came out of the yard."

"And?" He fits a nut back on a pushrod arm.

"Aaaaand if you don't take the engine apart, you might take me apart?"

The shoulders tighten further as he screws it back on with swift, jerking movements, "No."

"Take the ship apart?"

"…Yes."

I decline to point out that this probably was not the best time. "If we talk about this now will I get more than monosyllabic answers?"_Ah. So that's what a "baleful glare" looks like._ "Please?"

The shoulders drop as he exhales and tosses the wrench in the tool box with an aggressive flick, saying automatically, "Coming up." before ascending.

His face is closed as he leans against the mast and wipes his hands on a rag, but his attempt at a neutral expression is undermined by the clear glint of mistrust and anger in his grey eyes.

"Well?" He tosses the rag on the small workbench behind me and crosses his arms over his chest, subtly shifting his weight with the roll that has me grabbing the lip of the workbench.

I take a deep breath before launching into the preliminaries. "You're right John. I don't have the experience or expertise you do. I haven't had to see these people face to face the way you have and I don't have the hands-on insight into these situations you do. In the past the military has served to protect minority populations and at the core of it, morally, if one can help another, be it an individual or a people, we do have some obligation to try."

He lets my words hang in the air for moment before he tips his head to the side and lets his roll out smoothly. "And you're right that often politics trumps what's right, and common sense. I don't think we should turn a blind eye to people when they ask for our help, but I'm not saying that we have to ride into every hot spot like the bloody cavalry. The situation is usually lot more messy than that." His practiced delivery breaks with a cynical, "Usually it's a complete clusterfuck."

"I don't suppose there is a right answer." I say across the six foot gulf between us.

"I suppose not." he concedes without visibly giving an inch. "But you have to understand I have to trust that the commands I am given are for the best. For England and others. Once I'm on the ground, I can make my own decisions, but I have to start from the point that we're doing the right thing or I can't do my job."

"Understood. So long as you understand that while I may question a government's motives, don't think for a second I am questioning yours. I trust you. I trust your judgment."

He swallows hard as something flickers in his eyes, a yearning light which is swiftly guarded again, but the voice softens slightly as he continues. "Now. Are you going to tell me what you were really about?"

I look down at my feet."Was it that obvious?"

"I've been married. I know when someone is picking a fight with me. You know I don't get to be there for the people I care about as much as I want to. So when I am, I don't appreciate it being thrown back in my face. I've had enough of that to deal with from Alex."

_Ouch_. "You did nothing wrong, John. In fact, you did everything exactly right. I just wasn't used to someone doing everything right. Someone…" I take a shaky breath, just the word itself is hard for me to say. "...protecting me. Caring for me like you have. Ever. It..." _I'm not going to cry, I'm not._ "It was overwhelming. I was trying to keep a lid on it and every time you came near me everything started to crack open. As warm and wonderful as you were, the safer you tried to make me feel the more it scared the living hell out of me." I laugh a little, half-hearted and bitter, "I know that doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah." he replies huskily, "Yeah, it does."

I close the gap between us, putting a hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat under my palm as I look up at him, relieved to see the cold of anger warming in understanding. "I am very grateful for everything you have done and everything...everything you are, but I was scared of getting lost in it. I guess I…I needed to reassert myself."

"By being a stroppy know-it-all?" His mouth starts to tilt sideways.

"That's kinda the package."

He sighs in resignation, half feigned, half real, slipping his hands about my waist. "Fair enough. But you need to tell me what the hell is going on rather than coming at me sideways like that. I have enough people doing that to me out there. Here I need to know where I stand."

"Fair enough." I slide my hands up his arms to his neck." But you also need to realize I'm not made of glass. I needed you, twice, and you were there without my even asking and for that I am eternally grateful. But day to day, sometimes I need someone to roll up in my grill and tell me something I don't know. When I'm pushy and you think I'm wrong, I need you to push back."

"I think I can…" But I rise on my toes and pull his mouth to mine. Not wasting any time on sweetness but teasing his lips open and brushing against his warm tongue with my own as I mold myself to his body. He recovers from his surprise quickly, his lips sensually moving over mine as he pulls me to him tightly.

"Like I said," As we pull back to catch our breath I see the heat building in his winter eyes like a hearth fire behind a frosted window, "I'm not made of glass."

He says nothing but backs me across the room to lift me up on the workbench. The ship rolls and I wrap my legs around his waist to keep him steady as his mouth hovers near mine, snatching kisses with the motion of the deck as our hands move over one another.

It's been more than a week since we've done this and I want to bury myself in his scent, his strength, his warmth. The powerful musculature of his tall body slides under my palms, the very fact of its vibrant potency sending sparks down my spine to warm places. Yet in that power is such gentleness, such care, the way his hands drift lightly down my back, the feather like brushes of his fingertips over my breasts, the sweet sensuality in his kiss, drawing out the embers between us into flame. In his lust and tenderness, he pins me between fire and silk, between passion and affection in a combination that drives me mad with desire and makes me feel utterly safe in his arms. Both wanted and cherished.

I want more.

My hands slip under his t-shirt, my fingers brushing over the rough patches of his scars as I pull it up over his head.

_Oh, wow. _

It's not the first time I have seen his chest, but it's the first time I've been free to just react to it. The hard muscles are defined in the softer lines of strength of use, not sharply crafted by hours of narcissism in a gym, and for that natural state he is far more beautiful. My hands move over him, savoring the warm texture of his skin as we snatch kisses, our breath shared in brief moments of tasting one another. Tracing up from the freckle beneath the scorpion tattoo I feel the flex of his shoulders as he puts his hands on my waist. My fingers glide lightly from his neck across his collarbones to the notch at the base of his throat, threading through light mat of hair on his breastbone, over his pectorals, teasing lightly at his small dark reddish-pink nipples, feeling the expansion of his ribcage as he breathes in sharply at my touch.

Capturing my mouth with his again briefly, his hands slide up my waist and ribs, pulling my shirt over my head and discarding it. He nuzzles the long neglected spot under my ear, unhooking my bra. Pulling it off and replacing the cloth with his palms, cupping and squeezing my breasts gently as my fingers dig into his shoulders.

He pulls back for a moment to appraise the pale swells of his discovery, his long slender fingers dusky gold against my pale skin. A predatory light flashing in his eyes at my gasp as his hands lightly graze my little soft pink nipples, feeling them harden against his palms as every tender dart of heat from them pools between my thighs.

"My god, you have beautiful tits," he breathes, pushing back me on the work bench, his warm lips and hot breath moving from my neck...downward...

Suddenly John yanks me up against his chest and for a moment I am overwhelmed by the sheer sensation of our bare skin pressed against one another.

"Whoa! Oh God! Sorry guys…sorry." Jackie scurries by us, red faced, to quickly record the readings of the gages and scurries back out, closing the door behind her again as the ship takes another sharp plunge.

"Not the best time," John chuckles, relaxing the arm he braced us against the wall with as the shock fades and I start to snicker.

"Probably not." As the laughter subsides, I realize how much I have missed that oddly gentle smirk. I pull him close, enjoying the warm contact between our bare bodies, between us, for a little while more. He wraps his arms around my back, squeezing gently, a light kiss on my shoulder as we rest in each other for just a moment.

I keep my legs wrapped around his waist to keep him steady as he reaches for his shirt behind me. "Wait." His brow furrows quizzically as I thread my fingers through the light mat of hair on his chest again, rubbing it gently. "Fuz-zy."

He twists away slightly, embarrassed. "Shut it."

"Why? I like it."

"Just a weird little mat of the stuff." he mutters dismissively.

"It is not. I think it's lovely." I say, brushing the back of my fingers over it. "It's inherently masculine, like shaving your face and being bigger and stronger than I am, but it's not so furry that it interferes with access to ..." my fingers drift over his nipples again "...anything else." He catches my hands in his with a _Stop that_ look.

He doesn't get it and his eyebrows pop as he cocks his head in a clear _You're weird, but whatever makes you happy_ gesture but there's a hint of a smile as he pulls his shirt over his head. A smile that disappears in humorously sulky pout as I replace my clothes. He starts to move away, but, realizing he is still held captive by my legs, he looks at me in question.

"The way I see it," I start summarizing as I slip my hands around his shoulders, running my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. "...we have a lot of lost time to make up for. First time sex, "my hero" sex, comfort sex, and now make-up sex. "

"Well, " He places his hands on the workbench on either side of my hips, his voice a tantalizing low purr as that smirk takes on more than a just hint of devilry, "I have a hotel reservation in Port Antonio, but its only for one night. How about I just shag you silly as a down payment as we'll work out the rest as we go along?"

I kiss him deeply, full of sensual promise, before I release him. "Deal. Do you need a hand below?"

He blinks at the gear change, "Uh. Actually yeah. If you could keep an eye on the tools and parts it'd probably cut my time by a third."

"Was it weird working the boat engine, or was it easy to adapt from car engines?"

"Pretty easy," he says as he descends, "...but I'd worked on similar models before. I just read the manual and poked about a bit. Once you know the basic modern internal combustion engine, it's just matter of the details."

As I gather up the scattered parts and organize the tossed-about tool box, John puts everything back where it was. Forty minutes later, I'm watching him scrounge in the galley for the makings of sandwich, as the amicable free-flowing conversation that started on cars, how inaccurately movies portray car theft, how inaccurately they portray military matters, has moved onto movie adaptations in general, books, and impact of colonialism on India's military. I realize how much I have missed just chatting with John about those vitally important nothings, cohabiting in the warm little bubble of his presence.

We come on deck to the end of a dramatic sunset, the full clouds on the horizon glowing with a brilliant fiery red like Hephaestus' forge on the edge of the silvery sea. We enjoy the wind in our faces after so long below.

"I'm sorry about the comment about the books," he says, looking down at me as I shelter from the breeze in his lee, "It was a cheap shot."

"And like most cheap shots there was a grain of truth in it. Like I said, sometimes I need to be reminded that I don't know everything. Forgiven." I lean into him as a hug. "Besides, you're only saying that because you saw my boobs."

He shakes his head, "…Yup."

"The penis was a dead give-away." I'm rewarded by feeling the chuckle shake his chest.

There's a comfortable pause and belatedly I realize John isn't watching the horizon, but his daughter who, with other members of the crew, is climbing off the sail rack as safety warrants when night falls. I'm surprised to see a deliberately cheery wave and a "Hi." as she passes John and I.

"She came to the engine room earlier."

"And?" I ask warily.

"And I think you have earned her provisional approval."

"…Because I gave you a hard time?"

He nods and, as I laugh, adds warningly, "Having gained it, don't go looking for more of it."

"But it's only provisional."

That earns me a pinch.

"Brilliant weather!" the Captain says cheerily, fortunately missing John withdrawing his hand from my bottom. "We should put into Port Antonio tomorrow morning at this rate."

And with that, he inadvertently douses us with a bucket of cold water.

From Jamaica the fleet is breaking up, ships from Central and South America and the Windward Islands returning home while a remainder sails through the Yucatan passage around Cuba to their home ports along the American coastline. The _John Paul Jones_ will be putting in at Key West.

And John and Alex are leaving. It was always the plan that they would leave the ship in Jamaica so Alex could spend a few days sunning herself on a Caribbean beach while John caught up with old friends, but I hadn't been thinking about that and from the sudden regret in John's eyes, he hadn't wanted to.

Dr. Randall isn't insensitive of the undercurrent, so his mood is more subdued as he invites John, plus one, to the last Captain's dinner the second night after we've arrived. "It's a civilian affair, John," tacitly giving him the door to opt out if we had plans. That's the night of our reservation, but John had mentioned going to dinner anyway. When John looks at me for agreement, I nod.

"Glad to sir. Thank you." he replies. After Dr. Randall had moved on, "I can try to extend the reservation. Greg told me the crew is planning some good bye party and wanted everyone here Sunday, but I think that's more for Alex."

_It's tempting, very, very tempting._ But, "It's for everyone." I say, grasping the front of his shirt lightly, "Come in from the cold for a bit John. Besides, trying to get a hotel room in a tourist town on a Saturday night with only a couple days notice?" _And on the off chance all this chemistry is just hormones and we turn out to be utterly sexually incompatible…_

There's a similar hesitation before he nods, "Alex and I will leave for Marcus' Sunday and we'll be in Kingston for a few days before heading home."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

That's the last word said on the matter.

B Watch comes on at 1:00 am. By then the seas calm to a steady swell as the winds abate slightly, giving us an easy ride as the waves, edged in steel, slip away under the moonlight. John works with us, enjoying his and Alex's last watch sailing, helping strike square sails and set the stays'l and jibs in the dark, letting Alex coach him at the helm, keeping both of us company through our bow watches as the lights of the island materialize slowly on the horizon and the sun rises behind us.

"Have you ever been? Thank you." John hands me a travel mug of tea as he leans against the rail.

"No. I haven't traveled much in this part of the world. I met Marcus and David when they trained at Hereford. 'M fine." He waves off the mug as I offer him a sip.

As a Commonwealth nation, the Jamaican Defense Force retains strong ties to the British military. On my first trip I learned that the Coast Guard sends their officers to be trained at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. Not surprising that they would also send troops to be trained with British Special Forces.

"They've had to," he explains. "Cuba was right next door when they were just starting out, but now it's not so much the threats from the outside, but crime. The poverty opens the door to the drug trade which creates one of the highest murder rates in the world. Anti-terrorism and urban combat training have been essential."

"If people only looked past the resort brochures of their island paradises..."

There's a grumble of agreement from the dark shape below me.

"Things seem to have improved with Alex." I think of their matched earnestness at the wheel as John sincerely absorbed his daughter's instruction with only a minor misunderstanding briefly raising a specter of the old friction.

"She seems to have relaxed thank God. I've actually been able to have conversations with her. She even seems to want her old man around."

"Wow!"

"I hardly know what to do with myself."

"Enjoy it. At least the upswing of everything that happened is that she is seeing you more clearly."

"But she also got a big dose of reality while she was...teetering on the edge of growing up of. I'm just not sure which direction it's pushed her. I'm happy she wants me to be her Dad at last, but I don't want her to be...I don't want to hold her back."

"I wish I had something more insightful but you're just going to have to wait and see I guess."

There's a sotto grumble of "Kids" before I spot a cargo vessel coming up on our port side and John walks back to the quarter deck to make a passing arrangement.

It's was an emotional twenty-four hours that I was up, so I'm asleep, chastely, regretfully, in my own bunk when we moor outside the small harbor of Port Antonio, Jamaica. So it is with a double blink of a surprise I come on deck to find the beautiful green coastline off our port side and a JDF Coast Guard cutter moored off our starboard within hailing distance as Captain Randall shows the JDF captain, obviously an old friend, around the _Jones_.

Having rolled out of my bunk after two days with no shower, my greasy hair still in a messy plait, I'm quietly trying to slip back below decks when I hear John.

"Shit, Marcus. I really didn't need a taxi that big."

Fortunately, John's companion is speaking Jamaican English. The Patwa I can get the jist of what is being said, but I only understand every fifth word.

"I didn't know. Thought you might have been getting lazy in your retirement."

"Fuck off, mate." John rejoins casually.

I peek around the corner of the doghouse to see John standing with his back to me, surveying the cutter with a smaller man, whippet thin with that familiar upright military bearing, in a tan uniform. He makes a bit of show spotting me, causing John to turn.

Introductions follow after which I quietly promise John through a big smile, "I am going to kill you so much.", but Marcus Tyler buys John's future survival by placating my annoyance with a tour of the "County Class" cutter.

Always travel with military personnel; they have the most interesting friends with the best toys.

Sometime after the main deck guns, John and Marcus disappear for a while, I assume leaning against a rail somewhere talking shop. Delighted with the tour, I take little notice and wish him a good time, wherever he ended up, as we thank our hosts and disembark.

Most of the rest of the _Jones_ crew, having been driven to their wits end by the Captain this morning brightening the ship for the tour, have adjourned onshore for the afternoon and evening. I serve out a couple penitent hours at anchor watch, tracking our relative position to chosen points on land with the compass to ensure the ship doesn't swing at anchor. After sorting through my clothes and failing to find a white tank top that is not grey from being worn three days running and then washed with dish washing liquid or shampoo in a ten gallon bucket, I decide I must join the tourist fray ashore…and shop.

Ugh.

Port Antonio is nestled in a natural bay, one half of which is divided off by a spit of land, creating a lovely cove sheltered by Navy Island at its entrance. Each half of the bay is the mouth of a small river flowing out of the Blue Mountains to the sea. The port hosts a stunning natural beauty that attracted classic movie stars to its blue waters and rich green forests, resulting in some lovely old architecture and old fashioned resorts that have resisted the large scale commercialism of Montego Bay and not yet been swallowed up by the small concrete jungle growing in their midst. But leave the coastline aside. For all the travel agencies talk of the white sands, the beaches are nothing to the luxuriant green hills stretching up behind the town to the sky.

Kevin runs me ashore and then ferry's Rene and Alex to the _Spirit of Concord, _guests for a ship's BQQ's. I ask at the harbor office for directions to a shop that carries clothes that are not covered in loud floral prints and head to a covered market in town. The process of shopping I have no patience for, so I am relieved to find the perfect sleek white tank top. And lingerie that isn't jogging bras and simple cotton panties.

Since someone is actually going to see my underwear.

From there I enjoy a "'splore", aimlessly wandering along the streets and harbor, feeling the city, watching the people as the sun sets. Members of the fleet add to the tourists in town and once I'm pulled aside to tell the "thrilling story" of my rescue, but I don't feel like talking to anyone right now, so after giving the briefest of sketches, I make my excuses and move on. Content to just wander and absorb. As night falls, the number of men spilling out of shop doorways and bars grows and passing unnoticed, I hear snippets of Patwa and English conversations about politics, music, sports, more politics, and flirting with the girls walking by. Relaxing my vegetarian standards, I pick up some jerk shrimp and fried plantains and sit on the low wall by the harbor as the planets and a few bright stars dot the velvet sky over the waves coming into shore. After I finish, I realize I might know where I am, and go in search of the perfect harbor bar.

Set back from the water on a second story walk-up hidden from the street, the place is nothing more than an open patio balcony with a few bright Budweiser ads behind the bar, two pool tables, a row of small domino tables and plastic patio chairs scattered around a couple cable spools already dotted with plastic cups the simple mixed drinks are served in. From the very corner, you can see out over the water, and its relative seclusion makes it den of locals, not tourists.

It's a little harder to blend here and I find myself delightfully drawn to the rather raucous crowd around the domino tables and further in until I've actually won a couple games and small wagers are being placed. I'm a drink and a half in when I realize among the group of newcomers at the pool tables, John is watching me in amusement over his cue. We regard, but do not move toward one another, each returning to our games, a few glances each others way until, cashing in my vast winnings of ten dollars on another Margarita and a Heineken. I wander over to the pool table, handing John the green bottle to replace his empty with a kiss.

"Goddamn Brits." A sturdy blonde American says, leaning over his shot, "Free beers from random women."

"It's the accent, mate." John watches the balls settle out. "They think we're fucking adorable."

"Depends on what you are saying." I toss back as I keep moving past the table to where Marcus is watching with his back to the railing. John follows to introduce me to the rest of the group which I surmise to be some of the Haitian warehouse team. Mostly American (and nice to see they are not all male) with a couple Mexicans and a Colombian thrown in for good measure, all ex-military of one stripe or another. There are brief welcoming inquiries as John moves back to the table to take his turn while the conversation flows on in the universal military currency: Beer and Crazy Training Instructor stories.

A couple brief allusions are made to their "mission" in Haiti, but uniformed Marcus humorously interjects, "I'm not hearing this. I hear nothing," and the topic is steered back to safer waters. From the merry glint in his eye, I'm sure John filled Marcus in on all the pertinent details. He was just smart enough to do so without witnesses.

The Jamaican Defense Force is a fascinating example of excellence in adaptation. Yes, as a poorer nation, technologically it borders on a spit-and-bailing wire operation. Only recently have they been able to purchase new ships rather than using second hand purchases and gifts from the U.S. and U.K., but they do their job well and take pride in it and, "Her Majesty's Jamaican Ships" or no, their nation's sovereignty.

It's much more fluid organization than its parent, all military personnel are given the same basic training before going to specialized training in the Infantry Battalions, Air Wing, and Coast Guard, much of which takes place at various facilities in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. But they are not locked into this initial choice and can move between branches throughout their career, highly useful for small force which has to adapt to a wide variety of situations. In a similar ideal of cross training, personnel are rotated quickly through the six stations around the island, often on 30 day rotations, to ensure that all personnel become intimate with the entirety of the Island rather than having groups stagnate in one region. Like the infantry, much of the Coast Guard's day to day work involves law enforcement as well as rescuing people from fishing vessels (often quietly working in concert with Cuba in their overlapping territorial waters to do so), so such intimacy with all of Jamaica's coastline and surrounding seas is highly valuable.

While Marcus and I are discussing this, I watch the game. John's good. Damn good. Not a single second guess, no hesitation, just moving to the right angle to not only coolly take the shot, but I soon realize to set up the next two. As if by instinct.

His opponent, burly and affable Paul from the _Elissa_, doesn't seem overly perturbed, and in fact jokes about being scammed. Growing up in a military family, I am used to sitting across the table from people who have the physical capability of doing me great bodily harm. I fact, I have spent much of the voyage necking with one, but as Paul comes over to chat after buying the next round, I get the odd sensation I occasionally do around certain men, like I have been sniffed by a shark.

But I don't have to take him home at night, so I brush it aside. I turn down a game of pool (I can't hit the broadside of a barn), instead chatting with Jane, an ex-Navy Navigator who has also spent time on the _John Paul Jones,_ and Keisha, a former Marine crewing the _Adventure_, about the run Jane took around the Horn in a schooner. Curious as I am, I try not to pry into their experiences as women in the military remembering previous attempts resulting in the cold shoulder, but I think it a bit illustrative that as the men move onto the "We got so drunk..." stories, Jane's husband Robert asks why the ladies did not enter the challenge...

"I got so drunk I slept with you." she replies.

"She wins," John says into the ensuing laughter from the chair next to mine, breaking his genially quiet reserve.

Arrangements made for the hike tomorrow, the group splits up. Some staying behind to have a soda and sober up before climbing in a less-than-stable dingy back to their ships, some to find a late night restaurant. John and Marcus shake hands as they part, agreeing to see each other a couple days from now, before John takes my hand to walk back to the dock. Figuring all roads lead to Rome, we duck down a side street as a short cut to the harbor.

"O.K. I know you were shadowing me a bit on the boat when we first met, but this is getting ridiculous."

"We were trying to find a quiet place to have a couple drinks when I heard you from the street. Your voice carries when you want it too."

"Oops."

He smirks and as I turn toward him, I see the dark human shape hurtling at us in the dark. John's back is to him, but my gasp was warning enough and he pushes me away as he whirls to step aside and grab his attacker and shift his momentum into the wall.

John was not measuring his strength and I feel like I hit the opposite wall as hard as our assailant did. Stunned, I turn in time to see John's fist strike like a hammer, dropping the mugger to the pavement.

"RUN!" he roars, turning to close with another assailant in the shadows. I hesitate, unwilling to leave John alone, but the muzzle flash and deafening crack of a pistol in the enclosed space punctuates the directive. As does, "FOR FUCKS SAKE! RUN!"


	9. Chapter 9

_Part IX_

I freeze up.

I might have screamed something eloquent, like "NO!", as a another man closed with John from the shadows. I can't remember. I only remember the dull *pop* as the second man's elbow broke when John pined his arm behind his back and shoved him into the third assailant as there was another gunshot.

And then men running past me into the melee. Men in fatigues. And Marcus.

That was over 40 minutes and two police statements ago.

Now, waiting in a lounge at the local station, John has started to pace like a caged cat. Despite my reassurances that Alex is probably safe and sound on the _Spirit_, he's called, he's texted. He can't get through. Between that and the residual adrenaline, he is practically quivering with tension. And powerless to do anything about it.

One of the worst combinations a man can be.

"FUCK!" he explodes. Mercifully his cell phone remains intact, though the set of reference books on the file cabinet winds up on the floor. I know better than to pour gasoline on the fire by telling an upset man to "calm down", but I admit for the first time since I met him, John has...startled me.

"AND WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?" He whirls on the only other target in the room. "I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT OF THERE!"

O.K. I'll admit it. I quailed. He's big, he has a deep growly voice, and when he is mad he is scary. However, my annoyance at my reaction prompts me to another, more dangerous, method of dealing with men in this state.

"I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE YOU ALONE, YOU MORON!" I roar back.

Backburn.

John inhales for the return volley, then snaps his mouth shut and turns away, striding to the far end of the room where he just breathes for a few moments.

"I'm sorry," he finally mutters.

"It's o.k."

"No, it's not. You didn't deserve that."

"We'll sort that out later. Are you going to let me look at that?" The annoyed and quizzical knit of his brows softens somewhat as he finally notes the red fight bite on his knuckles. "Come on, let me see."

After washing his hands, John sits on the old leather couch as I use the antiseptic pads and band-aids from the first aid kit mounted on the wall.

"Plaster."

"Band aid."

He doesn't flinch, but there a quiet "Ow" as the antiseptic does its work. "Most powerful nation in the world and can't even speak the language properly," He grumbles.

"Have you been to the East End lately? Northumberland? And what the hell is the etymology for the use of "pants" for "bad"? And where did you all get "snogging" anyway?"

It works, his grim countenance softening with a hint of a wry smile for a moment."I thought you liked "snogging.""

"I do. I like saying it. I like doing it. Still doesn't make any sense."

"Why didn't you run?"

"I told you..."

"I didn't know how many were. I didn't know if I could have protected you. When I tell you to run, run." His words are accentuated by a tightening grip on my shoulder.

"Well you did protect me, so there's no harm done." I put the "plasters" on his hand, thinking that the muggers never even came near me. "I understand what you are saying, John, I do, but I can't promise to do what I'm told. In fact, when someone orders me to do something, my knee jerk reaction is to do the opposite."

He sighs deeply as he touches my hair. "Bloody gingers."

"It may be on the light side, but it's not just decoration."

Having seen John "in action," I better understand some of my crewmates reaction to him after "the event". The hands that that are touching me now with feather-light caress, that can hold me as if I was made of porcelain, just broke a jaw, an arm, and put a man on the surgeon's table to remove a bullet. And John did not have to touch a gun to do it. He encapsulates and expresses the two extremes, an intense combination that would give anyone pause.

Now those hands capture my own and pull me into his embrace.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I mumble into his breastbone.

I can hear the dull sound of his deep breath under my ear as he inhales to say something, then is is something else there. The hinted double-meanings and half thoughts of when we first started talking have returned. I start to pull back to ask…

"John." Marcus ducks his head in the room and motions his friend into the office.

"Wait here. And just this once, do it."

I stick my tongue out and pant like a dog. His annoyance is better than his stressed-out rage.

After putting the books back in order, I finish my cold tea. Wired yet physically completely drained, I feel like John has burned the energy out of both of us. I curl up on the couch and snooze, fitfully fading in and out. It has definitely been over an hour before I hear the door handle turn and John's weary voice through the crack in the door.

"I hate being right."

"I hate you being right too," Marcus replies. "Tomorrow."

"Yeah." The door closes and John places his hand on my shoulder, whispering, "Hey."

"Hey. Is Alex..?"

"Other than pissed off at her old man for having the harbor patrol check up on her? She's fine." He says, somewhat chagrined.

"S'o.k. John. This trip has been…unusual. You wanted to be sure she was o.k. Are we done here?" I sit up and rub my face. He mutters something under his breath, "What?"

"Yeah. We're done."

John is remote on the trip back to the ship, shrugging off inquiries with mumbled explanations about expanding gang territories. I chalk it up to the same exhaustion I feel as he gives me a polite peck before gently pushing me in the direction of the focs'l.

Our evening and Alex's embarrassment notwithstanding, all three of us go on the hike arranged by some of the small military group of the fleet. While his verbal agreement is ready, John's wary reluctance in clear in his eyes.

All the tourist brochures talk of the white sand beaches and azure waves, but the true beauty of Jamaica is in those mountains. Ancient volcanoes graced by time with a rich mantle of green forest. Hiking upwards along narrow paths dotted with sunlight streaming through vaulted ceilings of trees, fruit trees, evergreens and bamboo, coming across breaks in the cover opening on vistas of deep green ranges fading away into smoky blue, or some local farmer's free ranging cow.

I watch Alex and John on the trail ahead, her slender body with its springing step, walking along logs and hopping up on rocks next to John's solid back with his steady gait. I've backed off to give them the father/daughter time John has wanted so badly and worked so hard to get to. However, when we take a break, sitting by the side of the trail overlooking a small coffee and banana farm in the valley below, things do not go as smoothly as he hoped.

After a couple of the group find a few familiar nondescript grayish-tan sphere's beneath a tree, I sit next to John and peel one with my jack-knife, revealing the firm yellowish-orange flesh inside. My presence seems to bolster Alex on his other side, who has apparently been meandering toward:

"I've been thinking, after Haiti, y'know. I think I want to do more of that. Help people. Not like you did on the ship, I couldn't, but like you were doing in the camps. Like helping set up that school. That felt right, like nothing else I've done. I think I'd like to do more."

John takes a deep breath, obviously proud and touched but sensitive of pushing his parental claim too far. "I think it's brilliant. You certainly have the brains for it. You like helping people. I think you would be great. Your mother would be very proud of you. So am I," he finishes almost tentatively, putting his arm around her for a quick hug which she accepts.

She even accepts the kiss on the top of her head with only a token adolescent resistance.

We share slices of the Mammee Apple between us as the conversation drifts along casually until Alex broaches…The Problem.

"I was thinking of signing up with OxFam…or another international group."

John freezes. "I thought you meant in the U.K., maybe going back to school."

"Dad, the U.K. has its problems, but nothing like that."

I can see the near panic in his eyes as John mentally flails around for a moment, trying to come up with something other than _"IT'S NOT SAFE FOR MY LITTLE GIRL!"_

"Alex." he begins carefully, "Sweetheart, I've been in some of these places. You saw what happened in Haiti…."

"Dad, I'll be 18 in a week. I don't need your permission." Alex stands, determinedly shouldering her backpack.

"Alex! Listen to me..." John drops the remains of the fruit as he follows.

I pick it up, shrugging to the rest of the group who just rolls their eyes. I rinse it clean with my canteen and finish it off as I shadow John and Alex. I keep a discreet distance, hearing only snatches of their argument when voices are raised, but hopefully close enough to prevent bloodshed. Ten minutes later I almost run into them coming around a blind corner in the trial.

"Look! I am a sick of your job ruining my life!" Alex yells, jamming her finger into her father's chest, "If that is what you want to do, FINE! That's your problem, but it's Not. Mine. Anymore. I'm not going to let your work tell me how to live! Fuck that!"

Seeing Alex finally confront her father directly, taking a hold of her own life rather than playing the victim to John's, is a beautiful thing, but the hurt on John's face as she spins on her heel and strides back to the main group is heart wrenching. Spying me, he turns and moves forward down the trail.

I walk with him. After a while I quietly say, "You said you didn't want to hold her back."

He doesn't reply, the only sign he heard me a tightening of his shoulders as he picks up the pace. I don't say anything else.

As we go up in the foot hills, the trail leads us across narrow ridges, the forest sharply dropping away to the valley floor on our left or right in a carpet of what seems like every shade of green imaginable. Coming to a small village, we stop for a soda at the tiny cantina and eat our lunches there, watching the guys take a few tries with the local kids out playing some version of street footy.

John yields to peer pressure as Robert, U.S. Navy (retired), badgers him into the fray with a few "pansy limey" comments. John soon finds himself facing over a dozen colonial-types of all sizes, all of whom have a (genial) historical grudge fueling their need to score against the British goal keeper. Who actually does a good job fending them off, ratcheting up what was a casual kick-around into a real game. After the first couple defenses, John warms to it, loosing himself in the physical activity. What surprises me is how well he handles the kids. He's much more at ease with them than I expected. Coaching one a bit after he blocks their goal or encouraging them when they go up against an adult.

Alex watches, her recalcitrant frown fading into an unreadable expression. After fifteen minutes of watching the shut out, she gets up from her chair. "Alright, alright! Let me show you how it is done." She announces as she pushes red faced Robert off to the sidelines to much glee from the players and a small crowd that has gathered to watch the game.

John smiles brilliantly, but as he tosses the ball back and forth in his palms his only words are a taunt. "You're a long way from St. Mary's now Alex."

"Just throw the ball."

It swiftly becomes obvious that Alex used to play on her school team as a striker, intently watching the play of the ball in the crowd while setting herself, and her father, up to score two goals against him.

It's almost an hour later when we wave good bye to the kids and push on, heading down the foothills now. As the Porters have hopefully burned their anger out in physical activity, I let them alone, intermittently chatting with Kevin or Robert between quietly enjoying the stunning scenery.

John catches up to me as we take our afternoon breather at a waterfall. The water fans out over gently sloping rocks to a shaded pool beneath the canopy of trees. After stripping down to our bathing suits, we climb up the granite face in the spray between the streams to find a pool at the top of the waterfall that is being used to grow taro. John pulls me to him as we relax in the lukewarm water amongst the wide green leaves, kissing my shoulder as I lean back into him.

"Well? She still lives, so….?" I ask.

I feel his chest expand against my back, "So she's 18. I can't stop her."

"I know you've seen a lot of ugly, but tens of thousands of volunteers do it every day and they come home just fine. She's a capable young woman. She'll be o.k."

"I suppose." he agrees dismissively "At least I managed to convince her to wait..."

"For what?"

"…Just getting a few things squared away before she ships out. Hopefully she can get her training done at home while I take care of it. Shit," he murmurs into my shoulder, ""Alex shipping out". I never thought I'd say that. She's right. I've done enough damage."

I turn in his arms, taking his face in my hand. "I know you feel like you failed her earlier, but looking at how she turned out, maybe you might want to consider that you did a better job than you realize. You did not get as much time as you wanted with her, as much time as she needed, and yeah, that sucks. But parenting is not just attending dance recitals and putting plasters on skinned knees. It's also inspiring a young person to be the best they are by being the best you can be." I touch the tattoo on his ribs lightly. Two and half lines of block letters, fading and smudged with age. Something he first explained that he had picked up from a commanding officer who became a mentor to him, but later amended to say he got it to celebrate his admission into the Regiment: _NULLE TENACI - INVIA EST VIA - 1997_. "I see a lot of you in her."

He looks doubtful.

"She's determined, clever, capable, earnest, grounded, sincere, and hard working. She's coming to take responsibility for herself. She wants to help people. You made a good kid, John."

He says nothing but kisses me deeply. Sweet, affectionate, and grateful.

"Ugh! Dad!"

"Emphasis on "kid,"" he mutters against my lips.

By four we are being rafted across the Rio Grande to the park entrance and by five we are back on board ship, getting ready for dinner. I hit the freshwater shower first and dress. My freshly laundered dark blue silk sarong wrapped tightly around my waist to make a long sleek skirt below the white lycra spaghetti tank. Hair pulled back loosely into a barrette, letting it fall down my back. I don't think John has actually seen my hair clean, unbraided, and brushed all at once. _He may faint._

I'm applying the powder from the tiny bit of make-up I had squirreled away for just such an emergency when John emerges from the shower, sliding by me in the narrow passageway.

Wearing nothing but a towel.

"Excuse me." he murmurs in my ear, his hand on my hip as he presses against my back, taking a whiff of my perfume. "Hm. Nice," he breathes before he drops a soft kiss on my neck.

After he moves on, it's a full 30 seconds before I remember to breathe. I try to calm the heat and pressure that has blossomed between my thighs. _If he keeps that up, we won't make it through dinner before I drag him into the ladies room. _

After packing my small shoulder bag with the barest necessities for the night, I walk back to aft cabin to find John sliding his belt on. It's almost weird him seeing like this, blade-clean shaven in a pair of relatively new blue jeans and a white dress shirt, the sleeves of which he has rolled up to his elbows. Stranger still is the bracelet, a rectangular length of amber framed by silver squares. Many military men eschew jewelry. Even a wedding ring can get a finger ripped off if it gets caught in the heavy equipment many soldiers work with. Moreover, John didn't strike me as the type. Yet there it is. I realize that while most of the other men onboard have enjoyed the opportunity to let themselves go, and despite my assurances that I liked beards, John has almost compulsively shaved with an electric razor every couple days. As his hair has grown out a tiny bit over the last month, his hands have strayed more and more to it, unnecessarily raking it back in place. As if he was afraid of looking slovenly. I assumed it to be a leftover of his military hygiene, but with the bracelet, perhaps there is a little vanity in him after all. It's more of that richly subtle detail I have to look closely for.

He fingers a lock of hair falling over my shoulder. "Yeah, I picked it up in the D.R….with this." He digs a small black velveteen bag out of his pocket and hands it to me.

Shaking it out in my palm, the silver strand ends in a flat diamond of a blue-green stone marbled with white lines, like streaks of the sunlight dancing on the bottom of a sandy cove.

"Larimar! John, it's beautiful!"

"I know you said you don't wear jewelry much…"

"I'll wear this. Thank you." I kiss him. "Could you?"

I draw my hair up and I turn my back to him. As the tips of his fingers brush against the nape of my neck, I realize that he must have gotten this before our first date.

_Meaning he's either a cheeky bastard, or extremely romantic. _

_Both,_ I think, looking into his eyes, the colour of a sky before oncoming storm. But in the pleased warmth there is something else, something that feels almost like...sadness. A yearning edge like desperation held in check.

"We don't have to go to dinner." I brush my lips against his lightly, teasingly. "We can go straight to the hotel."

His hand wraps around the back of my neck as he deepens the kiss as if trying to drink his fill of me, before breaking to rest his forehead against my own with his eyes closed, breathing deeply as he reigns himself in. "You have no idea..." he growls, but quickly regains composure. "...but we promised Greg and for all he has done for me, it's the least I can do. The room will still be there," he breathes as he lightly drops another kiss on my lips.

"And if you don't eat now, we'll have to break later for food."

The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Clever girl."

The liberty boat takes Dr. Randall and us to the dock the _Bluenose_ is tied up at the Errol Flynn Marina. When John sees the linen covered tables arranged on the open patio on the far side of the outdoor bar, set with silver, china, and candles while white shirted waiters ply the gathering guests with cocktails, there's a pause.

"You look fine John." I slip my hand into the crook of his elbow. "We're beach formal."

The dinner is pleasant. After a comically suspicious look at the table settings, John is enjoying himself as he listens to the sailing stories up and down the table, talking a bit of shop about the desalinization system he came to know intimately with a captain who is considering installing one on his ship, and weighing in on a few shared memories from the trip. But generally he is content to listen and observe, his quick eyes reflecting the deepening blue of the water and the evening sky. I can't help but smile as I watch his precise movements, elbows held close to his body, squared shoulders, and ramrod straight back, realizing he has fallen back on his "Dining In"/Mess Night etiquette. There's an impish impulse to lean over and murmur, "Check your cover" to see if he snatches for a hat that isn't there, but he deserves better than that.

He is completely embarrassed by the toast in his and Dr. Randall's honor for their actions in defense of their ship and crew, and readily rises with all to wish the departing ships "Fair winds and following seas."

"You're quiet," I ask. We walk around the harbor to catch a cab to the hotel as the brightest stars appear above the bay.

"Trying to figure you out again," he says into muted sounds of evening, the noises of the town competing with the water lapping against the quay."Cheap beer to fine wines in 24 hours and you're equally at home with both. Not just at home." He pulls me aside, brushing a stray lock of hair back from my face, "You were...amazing."

"I was on your arm. Of course I was." He smirks cynically, shrugging the compliment off, but I cup his jaw, forcing him to look at me. "I mean that, John. I've never been prouder to be with anyone. You're not just a handsome man. You're a good man, something rare and precious. I'm glad I found you."

He blinks several times, as if in shock, before pulling me close. His kiss is rough with affection, a sweet honesty in his hunger not merely for my body, but for what I have just told him. How abandoned must he have been that he needs such basic elements of companionship so badly? Why would anyone do that to such a man, leaving him so hungry for praise and support?

Though, as we taste one another and his hands run down my back to pull my hips to his, the body is certainly coming in a very close second.

He parts reluctantly, his thumb stroking my face for a moment more before he seems to steel himself, taking my hand as he turns from me to flag down a taxi.

But ninety minutes later, John and I are right back where we started, climbing back aboard the _Jones_.

"I'm sorry," he says, his face the picture of disappointment as he helps me up the rope ladder slung over the side. The hotel was up the hill from the town overlooking Turtle Crawl Harbor. A classic resort hotel nestled in lush gardens with white pillars, tile floors, and airy spaces like something out of a John Houston movie. John had sent me into the hotel bar to get us a drink while he checked in, but a mix up with our reservation resulted in him disappearing into the manager's office for forty minutes to try to make alternate arrangements.

During summer. On a Friday night. With the fleet in town.

No wonder he came back to the hotel bar so tense. _Oh well, at least the drinks were free and the walk through the gardens was actually quite lovely. _

So here we are.

Necking on top of the sail rack.

It's not as comfortable as a four star hotel bed, but out in the open under the moonlit sky, the gentle sound of the waves, it's much more beautiful.

_It's certainly more…us. _I think, smiling into John's kiss. I can't believe I had to actually pull him up here. _Silly man._

I love the way he drops kisses on my lips in sensual teasing as he adjusts his body to mine, his strong weight sinking into me as his tongue nudges my lips apart and flickers against my own, tempting it to return the caress. The taste of his scotch and his warm scent mingling with the sea air as his hands trace the curve of my waist, my hip, and I run my fingers run through his hair.

Soon his mouth leaves mine to nuzzle my neck, making his way to my ear, nipping gently at my lobe as his hand finds my breast, stroking it beneath the taught fabric. His hand leaves it for a moment to slowly pull the straps of the my top over my shoulders, his lips following their progress, trailing his hot breath over my shoulders. He pulls back to watch as he frees my breasts from the lycra. He begins to lightly trace the most sensual lines over my skin with his fingertips, watching my nipples harden to tiny peaks under his delicate touch.

I pull his mouth to mine, my tongue brushing against his, encouraging him. He takes the hint and wends a warm trail down my neck to my breasts, cupping them gently as his lips graze against my areolas, my nipples, his warm breath making the goose bumps rise on my skin before he laps gently one, circling it lightly with his tongue before taking it into his mouth and sucking, making me writhe against him.

As he lavishes his sensual attentions on my tits, his hands travel down my stomach to my legs, at first just stroking their silk covered shape as if he was trying to trick me into believing it a harmless exploration, rather the incursion he makes a few moments later when he flicks the hem aside and trails his fingers up the soft skin inside my thigh until he is holding the very heat of me. I gasp and arch against him as he rubs me gently though my knickers and his mouth moves to my other breast. He groans a little in reaction to me, feeling the hot moisture gathering in his hand.

I'm overwhelmed by sensation that is all sharper for the delay, his strong back under my hands, his heavy thigh thrown over one of mine, his hot breath and soft lips, and his sensual fingers. My body has craved his touch for so long that when he slips inside my panties to draw a finger along the damp seam of my cleft, finding and lightly circling my hardening nub, my fingers dig into his shoulder as the scorching sensations sparked by his hand and his mouth consumes me as quick as grass fire, sweeping over me in a single blazing wave that has me biting my lip and letting out a whimpering gasp in both pleasure and surprise.

John's eyes meet mine in delightedly smug surprise.

"You o.k.?"

"Ah...huh…I…You…"

I practically launch myself at him, every part of my body in motion against his as I push him on his back and devour his mouth. I unbutton his shirt, leaving his kiss to make my way down his neck, feeling the beginning of stubble on his jaw under my lips, dipping my tongue into the hollow of his throat. My hot mouth drifts across his chest to find his nipple. Breathing on it for a moment, kissing around it, before teasing it with my tongue and then hearing the growl as I take it into my mouth, suckling gently on him. My finger tips travel over his bare, twitching stomach to his waist, savoring his groan as my hand drifts lightly over the hardening swell beneath his fly. I shift to the other side of his chest as my hand skims over his groin to trail my nails over the thick denim seams up the inside of this thigh. My mouth leaves his nipple with a gentle nip, eliciting a gasp, before leaving a trail of hot kisses my way down ward as my hand returns to stroke his swelling shaft. His fingers tangle in my hair as I look up to see his eyes watching me, a fire of yearning blazing breath the lids, heavy with desire. I return my mouth to the soft skin of his tummy as my fingers reach for the button of his jeans…

"Hey...John?" Kevin's voice floats up from the deck.

I freeze, my lips hovering over John's navel as he grinds out, "What!"

"Dude, sorry guys, but there's uh...David Duran here to see you?"

"...Shit...Give me a couple of minutes, mate...Fuck." He curses softly as I sit up. With a deeply regretful sigh John watches me tug my tank top back up over my breasts, forgoing the straps.

"David, your friend from Hereford?" I ask.

"Yeah. I'll have to talk to him about his timing." I start to snuggle, but he stiffens, "No. Don't touch me right now...Fuck." His fist hits one of the bundles of sails before he exhales his tension out, staring upward.

I lie a discreet few inches from him. "The Polar Bear Club, Sumo wrestlers. Russian weightlifters." There's a snort of suppressed laughter and then a shuddering "Ugh!" when I follow that up with, "In the sauna. Imelda Marcos. Margret Thatcher. The Queen Mother."

"Watch it."

"Oh, right. Sorry...Zombie Queen Mother. With a big hat. "

"That's it..." John rolls over and starts tickling me, resulting in what I am sure are satisfying squeals and shrieks amid his "snotty little Yank" comments, wrestling me down until I'm breathless.

The moonlight casts the angular lines of his face in relief and the sight takes my breath away for a moment. He is...beautiful, his features a combination of male strength and male grace, like the Archangel Michael at rest. His soulful yet earthy masculinity bound up in a noble and powerful form, embodying all the inherent potent and affectionate potential in one man.

John stares back. His fingertips tracing the bones of my shoulder he studies the lines of my hair, my face, the rise of my breast that has been re-exposed in the struggle, before his eyes return to mine. The wonder in them flickering with a tender warmth.

His lips touch mine with a sweetness that is almost heartbreaking and I feel the shudder of his breath in my mouth. But when I reach up to run my fingers through his hair, instinctively pulling him closer, he pushes away mumbled, "Sorry." After casually ordering me to "Wait here", he swiftly swings off the rack down to the deck.

_Right_.

I reorder myself and climb down.

_He'll learn_.

But the deck is empty except a small knot of crew, including several people from the _Spirit_, who tell me John, his friend, and the captain have shut themselves in the engine room.

_Oh kayyyy._

I return to the sail rack, watching the scattering of stars sway between the masts and the rigging and wondering what the hell is going on until I feel John climb back up as the sound of the engine of a dingy pulls away from the ship.

But instead of lying next to me, he sits back on his haunches and watches me.

"What's up?" I sit up.

He breathes in deeply, looking down between his knees for moment before looking at me.

"I left David's number's with my office since I was going to be out of touch. They called him to let me know I was needed at home. Right away. Lexie and I have to leave. Tomorrow morning." There is movement from the below. People coming up on deck from the focs'l hatch. John eyes narrow in the direction of the sound momentarily before turning back to me. "David's friend will be coming out to take over engineering until you all reach Key West. I'm sorry." He looks away again, I can't see the muscles in his jaw tensing but I know they are.

I sit up, just trying to process the information. The night so full of promise swiftly turning into a sort of tortuous comedy of errors. Well, there's no point whinging about it, but I have to blink several times to keep the tears back. "So am I. But we'll see each other again when I get home."

"Yeah...Yeah."

"And we still have tonight." I say stroking his hand. _Why are there so many people_ _awake and running about on deck?_

"Hey, Natty," Kevin says right below us, "Where the ukulele?"

John cocks his head slightly in that characteristic wry gesture, "Not as much as we thought we did."

"Why?"

"Greg and the crew are determined to see us off in style. I think he's currently in the galley teaching Lauren how to mix "proper grog." I told him he needed more Tabasco sauce, but he told me to bugger off."

"Uh...Oh. Oh Kaaaay..." The deck lights are switched on, causing us both to blink. I sigh deeply. "You know if you say "It couldn't possibly get worse," a pack of nuns will show up."

I chuckle, but the corner of his mouth only twitches as holds out his hand. "Come on, let's join the party."

As things are being assembled I go below to put myself back in order. I deal with the painful disappointment by shutting myself in one of the heads and having a bit of a weepy before I touch up my makeup again and put my "social face" back on.

I also discover my hair, fine as it is, has become hopelessly snarled in the clasp of my necklace.

When I come out of the head, John is arguing with his daughter as she stuffs the last of her toiletries from her bunk into her backpack.

"18 Dad. 18!"

"I'm still your father and I have every right to know what the hell that was about!"

"Yes, we had wild kinky sex on the quarter deck with a dozen people watching. Shit. It's bad enough we have to leave early..."

"I told you it's _important_." John drops the word into the fray as if it is the absolute last word on the matter.

And strangely it is. Alex gets quiet again before turning John's irate paternal concern to chagrin as she glimpses me and fires back, "And hypocrite much?"

He looks over his shoulder to see me trying to untangle the knot of hair around the necklace. "Let me see." He moves toward me as he addresses Alex. "Who is he?"

Alex sighs heavily, "His name is Chris. He's one of the guys I've been hanging out with from the _Spirit of Concord._"

He addresses me first, "I think we're going to have to cut this out. Sorry." I hear the metallic click of his switchblade, "Chris who? Are you going to see him again? There." I murmur my thanks as I pull the catch round and undo it.

"He's in Boston, Dad. I don't know."

"John," I interject. "Perhaps this isn't the best time?"

He sighs resignedly, "Right...But this isn't over," he calls after Alex as she heads above.

"Yeah, yeah," her voice drifts back through the hatch.

There's a moment of quiet as I pick out the reddish blonde strands from the clasp. Suddenly John has his hand around my waist and has pulled me to him tightly, burying his face in my neck.

My amusement turns to concern as, looking over my shoulder, I see the tears in his eyes. "What is it?" He blinks them away, stroking my hair for a moment, a look of such yearning that it breaks my heart to see.

"Nothing," he whispers, "Nothing." Wiping his face as he moves past me to go aft.

"John wait." I grab the back of his shirt, "Talk to me."

"It doesn't matter," he says bitterly. I realize that while both John and I have issues that separate us from our blood, having formed and lost a family, his needs are much stronger than mine.

"John." He turns to me as I pull him backwards. "That's not the last fight you're going to have with Alex."

He sniffs a bit before saying wryly, "...Probably not."

"And that's not the last time you're going to help me with something mundane."

He inhales sharply as he looks at the deck, "No."

I start to move into his arms, but instead he moves away to continue aft. I let him go.

In the galley, Dr. Randall has mixed rum, water, and lime juice in one of the big industrial size stew pots while explaining to the gathering crowd the history of the rum ration in the Royal Navy. Rum was served to sweeten the taste, and perhaps kill some of the microbes, of the ship's water which usually had stagnated in casks it was stored in over long voyages. Later an Admiral had the ships under him add lemon juice to the mixture to improve the taste. When physicians noted that his sailors suffered far less scurvy, the practice became a standing order throughout the Navy. Lime juice was most favored, being cheaper and more concentrated, leading to the nickname of "Limeys" for British sailors.

The Rum Ration of the Royal Navy, like everything the British do, became an elaborate ceremony that was continued until July 31st, 1970. "Now referred to as referred to as "Black Tot Day,"" Dr. Randall explains as he shows off his lucky antique brass tot cup, the size of half a pint, which sailors took their ration in.

Dr. Randall allows us lubbers to add sugar to the drink to sweeten it further, bringing out the taste of the lime.

A little libation is good, but too much is dangerous, even on a ship at anchor. Drowning drunks are just such a buzz kill. So there is enough for everyone to have one of the most traditional maritime drinks in history, but no more. However Dr. Randall has not been cheap with the rum, so one is quite sufficient for everyone to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

I lean back into John, enjoying being cradled against his broad chest between his long legs as we sit with everyone on the quarterdeck, a bit more crowded than expected with the addition of several crew members of the _Spirit_. The performances and games play out in front of the dog house. In a challenge to imitate other crew members, Kevin pulls off a passable John imitation by going down to the aft cabin and swearing loudly with a bad British accent through the skylight. Rene recites the more risqué highlights from the "Wife of Bath's Tale" in the original Middle English with the necessary translations. Songs both traditional and comical fill the night air, including one filled with nothing but celestial navigation double entendres. I thread my fingers through John's, admiring his strong hands, the slender artists fingers on large square palms, as a member of A Watch performs "Shelter from the Storm." Our eyes meet briefly. The regret in his is all too clear, but it's mixed with something unreadable, something veiled. He pulls me back into him, resting his chin on the top of my head before I can figure it out. I steadfastly refuse to perform "Saint Louis Blues", which apparently several people have heard me singing late at night. But Alex shocks us all, not the least of which her father, by singing a regimental hymn in a clear, powerful, alto. John says nothing nor does Alex go to him, but over the applause their eyes meet for a moment before she ducks her head bashfully and turns back to her friends.

John is also quietly moved by the gift from the crew: The ship's copy of _Kim_, signed with messages of gratitude from everyone, including Rene. Alex gets a shoulder satchel made from sturdy old sail cloth and rope, decorated with stars, her name, the name of the ship, and the dates of the voyage in thick wax-covered sail thread.

Its a couple hours of laughter and song before the empty stew pots (one for grog and one for lemonade) are taken below and the party breaks up.

I'm watching John being utterly shocked and perhaps a little nervous at the number of hugs he is receiving as Alex comes over.

"Thanks…for everything." she says, sticking her hand out.

"Yeah, it was weird." I say with a laugh.

"Yeah, it was. But it was cool."

I pull her in and give her a big hug. "You did a great job Alex, I'm sure you'll do really well with whatever organization you decide to join. Good luck."

"Thanks. You too. See you around probably." she says awkwardly before moving off.

Some of the crew go below to their bunks, some gather in small knots all over the deck to play the guitar softly or quietly chat. John tells Alex about their travel plans, including a ride in a helicopter to the Up Park Camp outside of Kingston which has her bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement, while I go below to my bunk. I hastily copy out something fair and then rip the page from my journal, folding it up as I dash back to the aft cabin. Dr. Randall is in his bunk but not asleep as I had thought. He says nothing as I stuff the square of paper in John's backpack, only giving me a slight smile and a wink as I slip back out of the cabin.

It's almost three o'clock in the morning as I turn the corner to the ladder up into the doghouse when I see the engine room door.

Shutting that door after us a few minutes later, I mold my body to John's, pulling his lips down to mine, teasing his tongue to respond. He breaks the kiss, so I nuzzle down his neck, nuzzling the hollow of his throat as I tug his shirt from his jeans.

"Wait, this isn't..." His body remains stiff even as his breath begins to deepen with desire.

"Do you really think the setting matters? I want you," I whisper against his skin.

"Christ..." He swears, groaning my name before kissing me with an almost savage need, our tongues sliding over one another as we share hungry breaths, the warm taste of him mixed with the sweetness of rum. His hands roaming from my hair, down my back, his body relaxing into mine...

For only an instant.

"No. I can't," he says though gritted his teeth as he steps back, taking my hands from his shoulders. Stepping back again as I instinctively try to follow.

My mind is just blank. "...What?"

The look of regret translates more clearly than his words. "I'm sorry."

"...You're...just tonight...Or...?" A cold knot forms at the pit of my stomach, dreading the answer to that, _"Or…"_

Behind the regret I can see in his eyes a resolution that is almost...cold.

I can't think, I can barely breathe. The word "...WHY?" blurted from my lips seems to strike him across the face as his gaze snaps from mine.

He lets me go, moving to stand on the other side of the room, looking at the floor. "I think we got carried away," he says mechanically. "And what do we really have in common, eh? It's been fun, but this isn't going to work. Not out there in the real world. It's better ended before things get too out of hand and someone gets hurt."

_Uhm...too late?_ Pride tells me to agree, to adopt a cold anger to cover my shock and hurt, to dismiss him as callously as he is dismissing me. "This wasn't just "fun" for me John. I didn't think it was for you either."

He closes his eyes with a shaky breath. "It wasn't. But my work." He opens them again, studying his hand on the workbench, "I'm traveling all the time. At a moment's notice. I can't be there for you like I have been here. I'd be lucky to be there for you even half the time."

"For Christ's sake John, look at me! I know the drill, remember? I'm a big girl from a military family. I don't need someone to be there for me all the time. If was looking for someone to be glued to my hip, don't you think I could have that by now? I like my independence, and more importantly I want to be with you."

"I'm making this decision for your sake."

_Don't do this!_ But I have to hang onto some pride lest I fall apart. Pride and pain. It's all I can feel right now on the edges of a swiftly growing chasm of empty hurt. The nothing that is all I have to hold on to. "I never gave you that right! I make decisions for me, not you. Your only responsibility is to give me the pertinent information I need to make those decisions."

"I can't!" The frustration is clear as he finally looks at me. "You're just going to have to trust me that this is for the best." The frustration and the finality of his decision.

_My God, this is really happening._

"I told you I trust your judgment when it came to your life. Not mine." My voice is a feral growl from between my teeth.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

Before my shaking breath turns to open weeping I rush through the door and slam it behind me.

Were we under sail, there would be plenty of spaces on the ship to hide. But after the party, crew and guests have spread out sleeping bags and blankets all over the deck and the sail rack to enjoy the night air.

So I go up.

I've never been up the masts in the dark and the challenge provides some relief until I'm at the tops'l crosstrees, where, over 100 feet from everyone, I can look out across the dark water. I want to scream, the pressure in my chest is so much, but I don't push my luck. In this silence, they might just hear me up here and I can't take company. Except John. I want so much for him to come find me, to say it was a mistake, to take it back.

But I know John enough to know that he wouldn't have said it if he...if he..._Oh God!_

I let the shuddering sobs slowly wring everything out of me, until by the time the sun rises, there is nothing but an empty shell sitting silently in the chill light of dawn.

I watch the harbor patrol boat approach with dead eyes and an empty heart. Watch Alex joining her father on deck as he shakes the captain's hand. She passes their bags to the JDF sailors before getting a hug from Dr. Randall as her father looks towards the bow, the focs'l hatch, for a moment, before climbing down into the boat and helping her down too.

And then they're away. The motor of the skiff carving a gently curving wake away from the ship as John looks back at the _Jones_ one last time, pausing for the briefest moment as he finally sees me, his taught stance leaving me with the impression that I have been recorded and cataloged for future reference.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author Note: O.K. this is rated "M" for a reason. I know there are some readers who like the fact I go light on the smexy, but this time I just went for it. You've been warned. :)_

_Part X_

We left Jamaica two days later, heading west through the Yucatan (affectionately renamed the "Pukatan" for its rough seas) straight south west of Cuba. Entering the Gulf of Mexico we only saw one miles-long thin arm of the oil that had been gushing out of the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well, but that was enough to make many of us weep. We bid farewell to the _Cuauhtemoc _and to the_ Elissa_, who we heard also lost members of their compliment when Robert went missing in Jamaica and Jane stayed behind to deal with the police. I prayed that he would resurface; hangover, sunburned, and repentant, but quietly assumed he was probably jumped by the same gang who had attacked us and was just was not as fortunate.

The remainder of the voyage was a blessing of hard work that let me stay on deck until I dropped or was shoved below. We had some new scientific equipment to runs test on, which meant a lot of sail handling to get the ship into position to the current and at the right speed. Trying to bring up Niskin sampling bottles from 1000 feet when they have drifted to the other side of the hull is nerve wracking at best. I tried to lose myself in the physicality of it, just the constant movement and focus. Even doing the various types of rope coils can have a meditative quality to it. I shot the sun and the stars daily to plot our position. I took advantage of the time I now had to catch up mingling with the rest of the crew. In short, I tried to enjoy the trip for what it was supposed to be and forget what it had been. I had never intended to find a relationship when I walked onboard and I did not end up with one. Fine.

I hate being a grown up sometimes.

But standing alone on bow watch in the dark with nothing but the motion of the ship and sounds of the sea, the empty space of where a tall shape and deep voice used to be resonated with the ache in my chest. Sometimes as I fell asleep I would catch his rich, earthy musk, as if it still clung to my skin.

I wondered what changed his mind. If I had misread his intentions, I was puzzled what signs I had missed. There were some moments the night immediately leading up to it, odd flashes of detachment, but even Kevin and Rene, the only two I confided in, were mystified.

"The bastard!"

I shook my head "He didn't make any promises Rene. The only thing he said was that he wanted to see where it went. I guess it just it did not go far enough for him." I shrugged. "It's just one of those things."

"Still sucks," Kevin said, leaning against the shroud as we lounge in the headrig watching the bow cut through the dark blue waves.

"Yeah, but what are you going to do?" I shrugged again. "If he doesn't, he doesn't. No point trying to force it down his throat. I just have to take what I can from it...It's nice to be reminded I can feel this way about someone. Though it would be nicer if the someone who turned that engine over stuck around to drive it."

Kevin clapped my shoulder before he climbed back over the hull to answer a call from the Captain.

Rene just shook her head. "It's just so bizarre. You guys just…You were like the ship's cats. Independent and a bit aloof, but you curled up together so well. I would have never guessed…"

There was nothing in John's conduct that said he was anything other than a good man who had been open and honest and not taken advantage me, if perhaps he had allowed my feelings to get carried away when he wasn't sure of his. The only explanation I could come up with, when I could finally face it, was that he had mentioned a casual relationship with a coworker. Perhaps he had decided to pursue that more seriously. If having things in common and understanding the demands of his work were his priorities in choosing a mate, that would certainly make sense.

That she was more beautiful, smarter, and easier to deal with that he had fallen in love with her and not me was something I was not ready to face yet.

I had nothing to reproach myself for. I was not ashamed of my feelings for him, or having expressed them, even if they were ultimately unrequited. But I almost wished he had been a jerk, that he had left me with something to hate to ease the empty misery gnawing at the edge of my consciousness for nine days.

His replacement in engineering didn't help. Jason was young, eager, and a bit too solicitous towards me, leading me to spend a couple days hiding out around the ship until he got the hint. _What the hell did John's friend tell him?_

The turquoise waters of the Florida Keys reminded me of something and I took the necklace out, considering throwing it over the side. But even as I closed my hand around it in determination to walk up on deck, I found myself jamming it back in my bags, unable to let it go.

Not yet.

Even when I returned to my flat in London and unpacked I still couldn't get rid of the damn thing, instead relegating it to the depths of my little jewelry box.

Back in my own bed, I slept for a day and woke with tears on my face. Curling up into a ball around a pillow I screamed into it, finally letting myself cry as I had not been able to before.

I slept for another day after that.

And then got up and went on with my life as it was when I left it. Classes did not begin for another month, but my editor had a galley proof ready for me guaranteeing a long stressful process of negotiation as I always had ten thousand minor alterations that my editor would have to talk me out of. Between that, finishing up remodeling the study, making up for lost time with Pilot, and my part time job in the University bookshop that ensured I was social occasionally, I managed. I won't say I was happy, but after a couple weeks I had reached neutral.

Empty, but neutral.

Until I come home to find John sitting on my stoop and everything I had built to shore up my heart is washed away.

Clean-shaven in a blue dress shirt and a pair of fashionable black jeans, a suit jacket hanging from the railing. His dark brown hair is black in the northern light and his eyes reflect London's smoky blue skies rather than the brilliant azure of the Caribbean. Eyes regretful and unsure.

Just looking at him steals my breath.

But there is such an edge of unreality to the moment, creating an odd formality; I don't think either of us knows what to say.

"Hi," he begins.

I don't answer. I can't.

He stands, tucking his hands in the back of his belt. "Can I talk to you?"

I walk past him and open the door. Cursory introductions to Pilot follow and I ask him to wait while I take the brindle and white boxer/pointer mix out for her evening walk to collect myself. The question of "Why is he here?" answers itself. The question is "Do I let him?" is what is up in the air.

Well, not that up in the air, but I want answers, which is what I say as I hang Pilot's leash back up by the door.

"You deserve them," he says quietly from the far side of the living room, reaching down to pet Pilot who is ecstatically torn between delight at yet another person existing to love her and curiosity at what this new creature is.

I don't answer, instead heading for the kitchen to put the kettle on. I hear a plastic "click" from the breakfast bar behind me.

It's badge on a lanyard. Horrible picture of John, the light washing out his face completely. Someone seriously has to train to make someone that handsome look that bad. But it's the words printed over a triangular seal that bring me to a full stop.

_"SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE_

_MI6_

_Section 20_

_John R. Porter_

_34487566_

_Military Liaison"_

I set the badge back down and put my hand to my mouth. John watches me carefully, waiting.

"So…the 21st?" I finally ask.

"Part of my cover. I'm listed on their rolls as well as Praesidium Security, in case anyone gets curious. "

"But you did...?"

He takes a deep breath, crossing his arms defensively. "Yes, I was with the SAS for seven years."

I match his posture, leaning back against the counter. "And I take it this has something to do with what happened on the _Jones_?"

"The worst of it. _Kip_, Honey, come sit down."

"Kettle will be going in a bit," I reply distantly, not ready to come into such close physical proximity to him.

He comes into the kitchen to lean on the breakfast bar only a couple feet from me. Just a step and a half and I could be wrapped in his arms, cradled against his chest. I could sink myself into the scent and the strength and the warmth I have missed so much that it aches to be this close to it. I have to almost physically beat back the part of me that wants to.

Well, that didn't work the way I had planned.

He clears his throat, his voice rough as he begins. "Remember how I said I had been said overseas and the job turned out to be more complex than we had anticipated? The problem was I walked out with information that could potentially destroy someone very powerful. Obviously, he didn't take that well. And worse, he knew who I was. My boss approved me going to sea to keep me off the radar until things cooled down."

"And this has what to do with…?"

"Do you remember when we were on the causeway in Samana and you said you saw a man there you'd seen at the waterfall the day before?"

"…Not really."

"Well, you did and you had. So had I. There were a couple of faces that became a little too familiar on that short visit. But I was...distracted..." The corner of his mouth turns up as he gives me a rueful look. "...and I brushed it off. And then there was Port au Prince. Didn't you wonder why they chose our ship?"

"I did, but I figured it was because we were one of the biggest ships moored the furthest out."

"That's what Greg said too, trying to get me to relax, but I spoke with Marcus when I arrived in Port Antonio and we contacted David, who works for the JDF's Intelligence Unit. He said he would put out some feelers, see if there was anything going on. Have me shadowed. And that night we were attacked."

The kettle comes to a boil and I pour us some tea as my mind, already reeling, processes the immediate data flow, no matter how fantastic it all sounds. "That's why Marcus was so quick on the scene. Someone was trying to kill you?"

"Yes."

"…An entire pirate attack seems a bit much…"

John takes the mug from me as his eyebrows pop in a wry gesture so familiar it makes my throat close up. "Also something Greg brought up, but I suspect that they had tried and failed earlier and that was a desperate plan B."

"During the warehouse raid the night before?"

He nods. "Probably. I was all over the place, buggar probably just missed me and I never knew it. In Jamaica they were gang members that attacked us, but they were higher level gang members known for their professional skills and they were operating outside their territory, which was enough to raise the red flags for Marcus and David, who came right out. The prisoners weren't talking, so we decided to get to the heart of the matter."

"…The hotel didn't lose our reservation did they?"

He takes a sip and shakes his head. "We were the decoy. I checked in and David sent a pair if agents to the room while I walked out the side with you. And it worked. We got him."

"I didn't suspect a thing," I murmur, thinking back on that might and feeling stupid. My focus was entirely on John, and having sex with John, whose focus was entirely elsewhere and I hadn't the slightest inkling. "Who was it?"

He shakes his head again. "No names. But between the JDF and Section 20, we figured out who hired him."

"The man whose career you destroyed."

"Threatened to."

"And that's why you had to get you and Alex back to the U.K."

"At that point we did not know how far it went, but we knew he was a professional. I needed to make sure she was safe."

"Is she?"

"Yeah. Finishing up her training with OxFam. Ready to ship out in a few weeks." Even the current emotional turmoil can't stop the slight smile of pride that crosses his lips.

"Good..." I nod perfunctorily. "But why did you…You didn't have to dump me!"

The hurt in my voice is reflected by the regret filling John's pale blue eyes. For just a moment he moves towards me, but I slide further down the counter away from him. It's too close, the need is too keen and I'm not ready. He sets the cup down, reaching for my hand which I let him have, suppressing the shiver his touch sends down my spine. "I'm sorry. It was the last thing I wanted to do_, _but there were multiple factors the first of which was your safety. They almost killed you trying to get to me." He looks at my hand in his, clutching it tightly as his voice becomes rough again. "I couldn't take that."

"Multiple factors…" My voice is flat.

He draws back, releasing my hand and returning to his defensive posture. "There were some concerns…"

"Concerns?"

"You have to understand we had to investigate everything…"

"What?"

"You're American."

"What?"

"You were with me at every attack…"

"WHAT!" I slam my cup down, sloshing its contents over the counter.

"Your family…"

"WHAT ABOUT MY FAMILY?"

""Oh, My mum's family is Army,"" he mimics sarcastically. "I've seen your background. You're practically fucking pedigreed. I feel like I need to petition your State Department just to talk to you. Your brother was in the Marines, your sister works for the government…"

"So I must as well?"

"It was the fact you didn't that stood out."

"So the General's granddaughter and the Admiral's niece can't have life of her own? I'm sorry, do I need to do a séance to contact Lafayette's aide de camp to get his permission for his descendant to spend her twenties screwing up?" I rant as I stride out of the kitchen with John at my heels. "Judas Priest, only the fucking Brits…"

"_Kip_, wait." He places a hand on my shoulder, turning me to face him. "I didn't believe it, I couldn't, not for a minute. My primary concern was your safety."

"DON'T TOUCH ME! " I smack his hand away. "THEY TRIED TO KILL ME JOHN! And you thought I was one of them?"

"I just said I didn't!" His volume increases as his frustration rises.

"So…what? You dumped me on someone's orders?"

"NO!" John roars, getting angry at last. "What the fuck do you take me for! My first priority was to protect you! There was a price on my head and you had already been caught in the crossfire. Twice! I had to keep you as far away from me as possible. But there were also too many questions at that point that I, we..." he quickly corrects, "...needed to sort out. We just needed to see the picture clearly."

I hold my hands out to shut him up, taking as deep a breath as the boiling rage will allow, and say very, *very* carefully, "This is me not hitting you," before turning on my heel and stalking from the flat, slamming the door behind me.

The western sky is glowing fiery red as I continue my stalk toward Greenwich Park. I probably radiate such pure fury everyone gets out of my way so I remain undisturbed until I find a quiet spot beneath one of the massive chestnut trees to pace back and forth in private, just in case I start talking to myself like a crazy person. It's a bad habit one gets into being a solitary writer when you tend to work out dialog while you are walking your dog.

Well, at least I don't wait for an answer.

It's about twenty minutes before I come to the realization that most of what I am feeling is anger from how much he had hurt me before. Anger I would not let myself feel. Another twenty before I can face the fact that, had our positions been reversed, I would have done the same thing for the same reasons: To protect him and even if I did not believe it, I would put space between us to clear the decks so I could sort things out.

I shake my head slowly as I make my way back to my place. _He made the wrong decision for the right reasons, but he's here, trying to fix it. He isn't stubbornly clinging to his choice. He isn't too afraid to admit he's made a mistake. _

_He's never been afraid to go after what he wants. _

_He wants me. _

After that, I'm practically racing home in the dark.

_If he still is "here." _I think as, jogging up the stairs, I check my phone to see I have been gone for almost an hour and a half. I open the door, but my heart falls when I see he's not there. I'm looking for a note when I hear a noise in the study.

Leaning against the doorframe, I watch John fitting the shelves in the floor to ceiling bookcases I had put up over the last couple days. Under his shirt, I can see the muscles of his broad back in motion as he crouches on the drop cloth covered floor, his dark hair and striking profile, the strong yet gentle hands. Creation and destruction. All the power and compassionate dichotomy in one man, made whole and beautiful by his courage to just simply be.

It's a bear of a position he and others like him are in. They can't tell someone they want to get close to what they do until they are completely sure of them, and then they spring the awful reality of that lifestyle on a person they care about after they have reeled them in. Being unsure of me, of us, John has taken a big risk. But taking second place to duty, the fear that he won't come back, the isolation from a significant part of his life, I have no illusions about what he is offering. The price tag is precious.

But what is being offered is equally precious.

"How long before you are sent out again?" I ask, knowing that he knows I'm here. Knowing that, like the first time, he's letting me make up my mind.

He does not look at me but instead fits another shelf in, "I don't know. I could get a phone call tonight to be on a plane in two hours or it could be weeks before they need me in the field again. I'm not sent on extended assignments," he temporizes as he pushes the shelf down into place. "When I'm gone, it's usually only for a week or two. The longest I have been away is under a month."

I nod quietly, processing. "...And you didn't even sleep with me. Don't they revoke your super secret agent badge for omissions like that?"

"It's the only thing they let me out of the office with," he says, turning to me with a hint of that warm smirk. "I don't get my gun and laser wristwatch back until I shag you silly."

It works. I smile.

"...Sorry," he says into the silence, gesturing at the shelves. "You left your keys. And I…er…"

"…got bored." I finish for him, moving into the room, feeling, but not acknowledging the tension almost thrumming in the air. "Thank you."

"'Figured it was less obnoxious than going through your South Park DVDs."

"Pilot didn't give you a hard time?" I ask as she watches John expectantly, just the white tip of her tail wagging back and forth.

"Nah. We're best mates now. Aren't we gel?" His northern accent gets thicker for a moment as he digs in his pocket and tosses her one of the treats I keep on the kitchen counter.

"And she's had how many?"

"I don't think she needs supper." Sitting on the window seat between the bookcases, he hesitates a moment before reaches for my hand again, still uncertain, his long fingers wrapping around palm. "So…"

"So you're here. I take it the danger has passed?" I watch a warm light come into his eyes and his narrow lips start to curve into a smile as I sit beside him, but just for a moment before he addresses my question, almost as if he was afraid of getting carried away.

"Yeah. I followed up on it, but found that he had also put a contract out on another party in the same…matter, and that other party had sent someone to deal with him. They got to him before I did."

"So he's..."

"Yes."

"And the other party?"

"Is a very practical man more concerned about being king of his own hill than he is in pursuing profitless personal vendetta's across the globe, or at least that was what I was told."

"And you trust him?"

"I do," he says almost wonderingly, looking at his thumb stroking the back of my hand. There is a moment of quiet that feels almost companionable.

"John?" There is naked hope in the soft blue eyes that rise to meet mine. "Never make decisions for me again. I know you can't tell me everything, but you need to give me enough so I can make my own choices."

He swallows hard before rasping out, "Promise."

As I lean towards him, he takes my face in his hand, his lips touching mine almost tentatively at first, so soft and sweet it makes my heart ache with the beauty of it, but soon kiss follows kiss and sweet becomes hungry as he pulls me close. Feeling his shaking breath against my lips as I open to him, my tongue brushing against his with a soft yearning whimper. _I've missed you so much!_

"God, I missed you!" John whispers harshly as he breaks the kiss to gather me to him.

"Never do that again," I mumble into his shoulder as I hold him as tight as I can.

"I swear it, love." He kisses my ear before pulling back to look at me, his eyes a watery blue as he brushes the tear from my cheek with the feather-like touch I have so missed. "I didn't want to, but I couldn't take the thought of you being hurt because of me. I couldn't deal with that again. Not with you."

There is a tiny voice in the back of my head that says,_ "Again?" _but I ignore it_. _"I know John, I know why you did it. But just...don't."

"O.k," he whispers, kissing me again. "O.k."

The kisses continue, sweet and relieved and grateful, as I relish the feel of him in my arms again, his warm, earthy scent, the sound of his breath in my ear. Just having him close when I thought I had lost him, knowing by the tightness of his arms, the fevered nature of his kisses, he feels the same.

But soon his hands begin to move down my back, skimming the curve of my waist, and his kisses become sensual, persuasive, his warm tongue teasing mine with the taste of tea and bergamot and male desire. Our breath becomes deeper, more uncontrolled, as the physical sensations begin to take over. John's mouth leaves mine as he nuzzles my neck and my ear, breathing my name in a question that needs no translation.

"Yes..." is all I can manage.

The way John is smirking I know my eyes must have gone as big as saucers when he picked me up to carry me down the hall. "I want to do this properly."

"You're here. That's all I need for it be right."

The almost unceremonious dumping me on the bed is followed by eager smiles as we pull off our shoes and socks and John tosses a couple condoms from his pocket onto the bedside table. His weight sinks into mine as he lies with me, our legs entwining and our feet rubbing together as we kiss, hot and breathless. I feel the shape of his body, the living weight of it, his dark hair between my fingers, his hands drifting over my neck, my face. I turn from his mouth to capture his thumb in my lips. John freezes for a moment, watching me as I suck lightly on its tip and flick my tongue against the pad of it before breathing onto his palm and placing a kiss there. When his mouth returns to mine he's ravenous, devouring me as his hand moves down my body to stroke and squeeze my breast through my shirt. I moan, pushing my hips into his.

A concerned whining growl from the far side of the mattress answers me.

John's and my lips part, dazed, as we look at Pilot. Her muzzle is resting on the bedside, her brown eyes shifting back and forth between us with a very worried expression. John's drops his face in between my breasts and his back shakes with silent laughter as I reassure Pilot "It's o.k.. I'm o.k.. I'm not being attacked by the nice man who gives you treats", and tell her to go lie down.

"Not quite best mates yet," he chuckles, dropping a kiss in the hollow of my throat.

"Give her time, she's not used to male company, and she certainly is not used to this."

"Hrmmm," is his last word on the matter as he unbuttons my shirt, his soft lips dropping kisses in his fingers' wake. I sit up to let him pull the shirt from my shoulders and remove my bra, watching the light in his eyes become fervent as he trails the backs of his fingers over my tits, teasing them with the lightest of touches as he alternately nuzzles my neck and watches their tiny pale rose pink buds harden under his fingertips. Cupping a pale, silky swell he lowers his lips to it, kissing softly around the areola before capturing my nipple in his mouth, his hot tongue laving over it. I moan helplessly, arching against him, running my fingers through his hair as his lavishes attention on one breast and then the other, feeling the heat from his mouth flowing straight down my spine to build the warm pressure starting to ache between my thighs.

But it is not enough. I want so much more of him, all of him. I pull him up, kissing him deeply as I roll us over. John's deep voice growls in my ear as my mouth finds that one tiny spot under his jaw, so long missed. So long needing my attention. His fingers run through my hair as I straddle him, writhing against him as he strokes and grips my backside. He inhales sharply as I tease his ear with my hot breath and the tip of my tongue and his fingers dig into my shoulder as I nip the lobe gently before wending a warm trail of kisses down to his chest, mimicking his earlier movements as I remove his shirt.

My fingers thread through the small mat of chest hair and I drop a kiss on his lips, the hollow of his throat, and in the silky hairs under my fingers as I embark on a journey of exploration I have wanted to take for some time. My soft mouth moves across the broad expanse of his chest, finding, teasing and suckling one red nipple and then the other. His breath comes in stops and starts as I trail my lips and hot breath down his stomach, my hands roaming over his hips, down the outside of his legs, up the inside of his thighs before stroking the hardening length inside his jeans while I dip my tongue into his navel. Filing the sudden jump of his stomach muscles away for later, I follow the faintest of treasure trails down to his waistband. As I unzip his fly, he lifts his hips and I pull both his jeans and his trunks over his backside, down his strong thighs, his long legs, freeing him. Nuzzling around the base of his shaft while my hands trail up his legs, caressing his inner thighs before my fingers drift lightly over his balls, his cock, memorizing every ridge and vein, its soft skin the texture of rose petals sliding slightly over its firm length.

Sliding up his body I take his kiss, a wild tenderness dancing on the edge of something primal. I savor the catch of his breath and groan in my mouth as I stroke him between our bodies and he holds me close, his hands wandering over my skin. He rasps my name against my lips, an elemental need lighting the storm clouds in his grey eyes. I slide back down, my fingers splaying through the patch of dark hair below his hips as my soft lips glide over him, examining more intimately where my fingers had led. I reach the smooth hard tip, listening to the sharp intake of his breath as I swirl my tongue over it, before pursing my lips around it and drawing him into my hot, wet mouth as I hear him breathe "Yes!". He feels so good, his warm, hard flesh resting against my tongue as it ripples against the underside of his phallus. I begin to move slowly, drawing him out and sucking him back in, slow steady strokes as my tongue flickers against his head with each pass. Listening to him groan, I moan around him in response. I swear I could spend a lifetime making him make those noises. I wrap my hand around the base of his shaft and begin pumping, my pace following his rising pleasure as I watch him looking down at me in pure lust and delight, mouth open, his breath coming in shallow pants between moans of encouragement and obscenities. My other hand traces over his stomach, his thighs, before gently fondling his balls as his fingers tangle in my hair and his hips begin to move instinctively, showing me the rhythm he needs.

A few moments later, he gasps my name again. "…stop. Stop." Pulling me back up to him, his kiss almost savage as he pushes me back on the bed. Fumbling a bit, he yanks my jeans and panties off. He scores points by not making the ubiquitous "You really are a red head/carpet matching the drapes" comment, instead smirking delightedly as he brushes his fingers through the soft coppery curls at the juncture of my thighs. His lips wend a soft trail from my mouth, down my neck, stopping to suck at my breast. His tongue swirling against my nipple as I sink to the bed, the cool sheets on my shoulders countered by the pinpoint sensation of his hot mouth nuzzling from tits to my navel as his fingers dip lower.

"You're so wet," he says in wonder.

"I told you I like it." I gasp as he probes deeper.

"I know you did, I just never thought..." he murmurs against the inside of my hip as his deft fingers gently explore my warm, soaking cleft, teasing, stroking, before sliding inside me as his warm velvet tongue brushes against my clit.

My response is galvanic, a sharp gasp as my back arches, lifting my hips from the sheets. John lays a reassuring hand on my stomach, long bronzed fingers against creamy skin, steadying me as the fingers of his other hand move between my slick folds and his lips and tongue teases and suckles my small nub gently, finding the right touch, the right rhythm that builds a bonfire beneath his hot mouth as my fingers run through his dark hair. Stroking and sucking until my hips begin to rise against him instinctively in time with his mouth and his hand and the small mewling noises in my throat. The fire takes on searing edged quality that soon bursts open in a wave of molten heat that has me whimpering his name as I writhe mindlessly.

"My god woman..." He whispers, leaving a kiss on my navel as he moves up my body, sliding his arms under my shoulders and threading his fingers through my hair as he kisses me deeply, sensually sharing my saltiness with male taste of him. I'm not trying to regain my breath, I don't care anymore. All there is are his eyes and his voice and his breath and his weight and his skin and his rich scent and the teasing touch of him at my aching need.

I trace up the backs of his calves with my toes, pushing my hips into him.

"John, please..."

"Wait." He tears open the packet and rolls the condom on before settling back down between my thighs. There's a predatory fire in his eyes as, with a shift and tilt of my hips, my soft heat instinctively finds the tip of his hard length. Just as instinctively, he thrusts deep into me.

But I bite back a cry of shock and pain. My body, long unused to the act, struggles to accommodate the incursion as I squirm beneath him and my fingers dig into his ribcage.

"Fuck!" he gasps at the feel of me gripping him so tightly, but the primal lust in his eyes is banked quickly, though with effort, with concern. "I was too rough, I'm sorry." He lowers his body to mine, kissing me softly.

"No, you weren't," I reassure as I squirm a bit more, trying to get comfortable as the entrance of my body smarts as it adjusts to his girth. His mouth twists and those furrows appear along his brows as his eyes take on a skeptical glint."O.k. a little, but you didn't do anything wrong. It's just been so long, I need a moment to get used to you."

"Alright. But no more of that. Not here. I told you I need to know where I stand."

My fingertips trace the line of his eyebrow as I whisper, "I swear...Sorry."

"S'.o.k."

He drops gentle kisses on my face and neck as the tension slowly flows out of me. It has been so long that my body had forgotten what it felt like, and I can't remember it ever feeling like this. Not merely the touch of his lips, the weight of his body, his breath in my ear, his hard length pressing the tender walls of my body open. It's ...the purity of it, of him.

When he raises himself to look into my eyes I see what John is holding back; a desire that almost burns to the touch. He wants to fuck me in the most elemental, animal way and there is a part of me that wants to answer in kind, but it's untainted by shame or wickedness. There is no sin here. Like the rest of John's being it's just him. No bullshit. A primeval masculine energy born of nature, untouched by social mores or neurosis or jaded performance.

And in that ancient need there is such sensual gentleness and caring. As he softly brushes my cheek, I feel the tremor in his fingers, the thunder of his heart as he drops his forehead to mine, whispering my name. His kiss is a soft query, and as we take each other's breath in our mouths, our tongues teasing and tasting one another, I raise my legs to wrap around his waist, pulling him deeper into me. He groans softly and begins to move, slowly with small gentle strokes, coaxing my arousal with his. It still burns slightly with each movement, but the pleasure outweighs any pain and I moan in response, my hands sliding down his back, feeling the sweat that gathered there in his restraint as the sensations of the sweet friction he creates wash over me. Encouraged, he begins to move more freely, deliciously sliding in and out of my pussy to almost his full length, letting me feel the texture of every inch of his shaft as he buries his face in my hair and I taste the salt from his damp shoulder.

He rolls us over, gently pushing me up so that I am straddling him upright. Watching him stretched out below me like an offering, his shaft sheathed to the hilt in my tight, slick heat. His dark hair mingled with my own reddish-gold. His hands skate down the length of my body as he murmurs, "God, you're so beautiful..."

He smiles as he sees me blush. Taking his hands, I place them on my hips. "Show me what you want."

John guides me into his pace, his hips rolling under me as I ride him. He watches me with languid pleasure, holding my breasts in his large hands as they bounce gently with the motion of our bodies. But after a while, I falter in the rhythm and he notices my tension.

"Is this o.k.?"

The sudden apprehension in him, the fear of disappointing me, is so clear in his eyes, I feel utterly rotten. I lean over to kiss him thoroughly, reassuringly. "It's not you, John. It's not you at all. You're amazing. You feel...," I rise and slide down his dick again, delighting in the pressure and fullness he creates in me, the sensation of it moving through my swollen vulva, even if it is still a little tender. "...God, you feel so good. It's this position. I can't really let go and relax up here. I'm never sure what to do."

He breathes deeply in relief. Sitting up, his hands lightly running up and down my back as he nuzzles my neck. "Alright. We'll work on that later, but for now..." He kisses my lips. "...What do you like?" I can feel my face turn flaming red. John chuckles as he returns to my neck. "I've seen you shout down the length of a ship to order a crew around. I've seen you argue politics for hours. You practically tore my trousers off for…this," he purrs against my lips as he rocks his hips slightly, driving his prick and his point home to the delighted catch of my breath. "And *now* you're shy? Tell me what you want."

"I want you," I reply simply.

He strokes my hair, his look warm, affectionate, and encouraging. Trusting as he asks me to trust. "You have me. What do you want me to do?"

Still pink cheeked, I lie down on my side, watching John's eyes light with curiosity and lascivious amusement at my shyness as I tell him to straddle my lower thigh while holding my upper leg against his chest as he fills my swollen cleft again.

"See, this way..." I gasp a little at the sensation of his girth pressing me open like this. "...you are inside me...Oh God, John!...and...and your thigh rubs against..." My words trail off in a gasping moan as each thrust of his hips creates the sweet, warm, slick pressure and friction all over and through my pussy.

_My God he's beautiful._ The soft planes and sharp angles of his handsome face are thrown into warm relief in the incandescent light as his hands move over my leg and my hip and my backside. His eyes are narrow, silvery, filled with a dangerous fire on the edge of breaking forth into a blaze that will consume us both, yet in them is a soft gleam of wonder. His lips open slightly as he reaches a new plateau of pleasure. His long body is precisely drawn in golden skin and shadow in the light, broad shoulders and biceps flexed in tension as I run my hands down his chest, over his stomach to his hips, his thigh as he drives into me harder, faster. I see the animal satisfaction in his face as my hips began to unconsciously move to meet each thrust, before his eyes slide closed as he rides the waves of pleasure from our shared rhythm. Moving in me, with me, fueling the uncontrollable fire between us, a burning singularity of sensation growing in fierce intensity. I call out helplessly, rhythmic yearning noises as he groans my name, endearments, and lustful encouragement. I gasp his name just as he pushes me over the edge, the burning intensity exploding in a firestorm that sweeps through me as I cry out. My cunt pulsing around his shaft as I buck and shake against him.

Dropping my leg to his waist, John pushes me on my stomach and slides his other leg between my thighs. Never breaking contact as he pulls me up, slamming his hips into my backside as he fucks me. His rock hard shaft plunging into in my swollen, sensitized slit. Stroking in time with the residual ripples of my climax, coaxing me up another peak as I feel the pressure and heat build again. My shoulders on the bed allow my hands to roam free to reach back, stroking his legs. Reaching between mine, I find my clit. Rubbing it in time with his wild movements, I listen to the wonderful noises he makes; the groaning of my name, the "UHN"'s of elemental pleasure, the gasp as he crosses his threshold of release and his body moves with an instinctual tempo. Looking back over my shoulder, my eyes meet his, finding them rapt, wanton, warmly possessive. A wild force moving through him as he thrusts into me over and over in the most primal of drives. Another orgasm comes over me like a wave projected from him, powerful surge tearing through me as my pussy grasps his cock tightly, stroking in time with his thrusts as I shake with a feral cry. John calls out moments later, his fingers digging into my hips as he buries himself inside me, the surges of his climax emptying into soft, clasping waves of my own.

We fall forward together, John resting against me. It takes me a while to remember to breathe. When I do, I savor our mingled scents, touched with musk, and the feel of his shaft still filling me, all warm and snug. I savor the beat of John's heart returning to its steady pace, the damp hair of his chest against my back. I savor the living weight of his body and our limbs entwined, the hair of his legs against my smooth skin. John's chest moves lightly with his shallow breath in my ear, until an aftershock, my body clenching at his, causes him to inhale sharply with a small jerk. I moan at his slight movement inside me, feeling like a gentle echo of our union.

He shifts a bit to the side to look at me, his winter blue eyes filled with a warmth and affection that brings tears to mine. "Hi."

"Hi." Squirming my hand up between us, my fingers drift over the stubble of his jaw. He stokes my hair for a while as we lay together in comfort. Silent, resting and touching each other gently, looking into one another eyes, neither inclined to move beyond this moment just yet.

Until I start to giggle.

One of his dark eyebrows arches in query, which just sets off another spate of giggles. The problem with laughter and sex is it compresses a woman's abdominal muscles, causing other portions of our anatomies to tighten.

John 's eyes practically pop as he is pushed out. "Whoa!"

Deprived of his fullness, I groan petulantly and roll over, trying to stifle the laughter bubbling out of nowhere. "I'm sorry. Are you o.k.?"

"Uh, Yeah?" he replies, still holding himself up over me looking concerned and not just a bit confused.

"No, no, John. You were amazing, perfect. Better than I had dreamed," I breathe as the giggles subside and I kiss him. "I just feel …light, happy, floating." My fingers dance randomly in the air in an attempt to describe what I could later label "euphoria", and I feel the idiot grin spread across my face.

"Jesus. I thought it was just an expression." he says, smiling now in a combination of affection, contentment, and male smugness as returns my kiss.

He lifts himself up and the cool night air washes over my damp skin that has he exposed. He winces a bit as he slips the condom off and tosses it toward the wastebasket under my dressing table before rolling over to sprawl next to me. Stretching out, he crosses his hands behind his head, unconsciously creating an impressive display of masculine strength and beauty in the musculature of his chest and upper arms, the planes of stomach with his penis resting amid the dark thatch of hair below his hips, leading into the long lines of his thighs and slender calves to his wide bony feet. All this topped with a smile brilliant as sunlight across his chiseled profile as he sighs contentedly.

We lie in languorous quiet, holding each other gently as we float in aftermath.

Until John starts to chuckle.

"What?"

"Well, this must have been my best day." He grins, all smug again. "Or would it be better than my best day?"

"What…Oooooh!" That one gets him a thump with a pillow. Pushing him off the edge of the bed onto the floor with a satisfying thud feels even better. He manages to fight his way back onto the bed through a hail of padded blows. I haven't prayer, but I still make him work for it.

With a deep rumble from his stomach, a cease fire is declared as we forage through the take-out directory and 20 minutes later, after putting Pilot in her kennel, we take our prey of a pizza back to bed.

John sits up against the headboard, naked except for the sheet draped over his lap, as he alternately polishes off the last slice of the pepperoni and sausage side of our pizza and swigs from a bottled sports drink he found in my 'fridge. His eyebrow arches a bit warily as he catches me watching him.

"What?"

I roll over onto my tummy, my calves swaying in the air behind me. "This is just...I know you are smart and certainly clever enough for the work, and I don't mean any offense to you or what you do, but you seem so straightforward, you have such integrity. Military, yes. Intelligence...That came out of left field."

"It did for me as well," he says, setting the pizza box on the floor and sliding down on the bed to lie next to me, propping himself up on his elbow.

"Can you tell me how?"

"…I can't talk about where or who or exactly when, but I can tell you that it started years ago when I got this." He motions at scar on his shoulder. "When I lost my patrol. We were sent to extract a hostage with an intelligence officer. Insertion went smoothly. There was some heat coming out but nothing we could not handle until we ran into a kid who was...he was being used as cannon fodder. I didn't kill him. Saved his life, in fact. Then I just knocked the poor little buggar out to make sure he wasn't any more trouble for us and didn't get in trouble with whoever set him up. Not his fault he got pulled in over his head. But that held us up enough for reinforcements to arrive and two of my mates got stuck on a floor below, covering our rear. I got hit and so moved ahead with the hostage to the chopper. The intelligence officer went below and..." He inhales quickly, suddenly looking at the bed. "He came back up with Steve, who taken a head shot. Said that Mike and Keith, the other two members of my patrol, were dead. I tried to go back, but there was no time to get to them. There was some small part of me hoping that they were alive, but there was nothing after the invasion. No word." A deep breath now, cleansing himself. "At the debriefing, the intelligence officer said that he'd seen the kid I'd knocked out holding a gun on their position."

"Jesus, John." My hand finds his in the sheets.

"You can imagine what happened next. I counted myself lucky they decided to let me take retirement rather than bring me up on charges and booting me out on my arse."

"How did you cope?"

"Not well. I had a hard time making a go of it, I told you. Trying to explain why I took early retirement to anyone in the security field, who knew the right people to ask what really happened…" He shakes his head. "Who would hire a bastard who got drummed out of the Regiment for getting two of his patrol killed and another in a coma?"

"That's not what I meant," I say, brushing his temple with my fingertips.

He breathes deeply. "...Not well…I thought I had gotten my men killed. Part of you is prepared for it, you know, to lose some friends. Half the guys I used to watch matches with at Hereford are gone. Part of the life. But you never think that you will have to deal with losing all of them, and that you would be responsible it, for the deaths of people who trusted you to lead them safely...And the instant I stepped out of that chopper, I was a leper. The only mate I had who would have stood by me was in a coma and I thought it was my fault. Everyone did. I ran into Steve's wife at hospital once. I had stood best man at their wedding...She spat on me. My own family couldn't look at me and I couldn't blame them. I didn't want to look at me. Then Diane left with Lexie...Except for Lexie, I tried as hard as I could to disappear."

I can see the pale of hopelessness, the defeated ghost of him in his eyes when he speaks of that time. As much as I want to, I know there is nothing I can say to take away the memory of that kind of pain. I just move into his arms, holding him tightly. He rests in my embrace for a while, kissing my shoulder before pulling back a bit to continue.

"The intelligence bloke from the mission helped me out. Made sure Dianne and Lexie didn't want for anything, helped me find work. I kept going day to day. I couldn't do anything else. It was like I was still stuck in that stairwell. For years. Then last year that same kid, the one I had saved, turned up on another op and I was called in. He told me what happened. He had been conscious and in that position. He'd seen everything. It was the intelligence officer. The poor untried bastard had panicked and opened fire without identifying his target and shot all three of my patrol as they came up the stairs."

"Oh my God, what did you do?"

He shakes his head. "I couldn't extract the kid. The officer made sure of that. It was only my word against his, so I kept my mouth shut, hoped to find more proof. He offered me a job with the Firm and I took it. I think we both wanted to keep an eye on one another. A couple months ago now, Steve passed away and they were able to extract the bullet fragments from his head, proving that it came from Col...the intelligence officer's weapon."

"So you've been cleared?"

"Yeah. My new boss pushed forward with an internal inquiry before I got back based on the ballistics. Nothing is public about a classified mission of course. Woudn't want it anyway. You remember when you said to me that Lexie would someday get tired of the weight of it? I'd gotten tired of the weight of it. The bastard make a stupid fucking tragic mistake and then ran from taking responsibility for it. I was just... I was just tired of carrying his responsibility, his guilt. I just needed to hear him say it, that it wasn't my fault. To take it back. Destroying his life, destroying his family, it wasn't going to bring back my mates. Wasn't going to bring back my family. I just wanted it to be over."

"I understand."

"...I know. I know you do." He looks at me in sympathy as he strokes my cheek. "Was it the…?" His words trail off, as if afraid to bring the specter of that kind of violence into our bed.

"That and other things."

"What happened?"

But I shake my head. I don't want to bring it in here either. "Not now. We've have enough to deal with today."

He waits me out for a moment, holding my face while he looks at me with such open, tender concern, it's almost overwhelming, but I'm not going there tonight. "O.k." He kisses me swiftly, sweetly, before resting his forehead against mine for a bit. Then he rolls over on his back and pulls me into his arms. "He was killed on mission, the intelligence officer, saving my arse in fact. Years ago he sacrificed my life to save his career, then he sacrificed his life to save mine. He'll have to square what he did to the rest of my mates with God, but whatever he owed me, it's over...It's been hard on Lexie tho'."

"Why?"

"He spent so many years practically taking my fucking place, looking after Diane and Alex. I guess he felt guilty and was trying to make it up to me. She wasn't ready to hear that the bloke she had trusted was the one who destroyed our lives."

"And now?"

"We haven't talked about it since the inquiry was finished, but she faced up to a lot and grew up a lot on that trip. Maybe started to see her old man as something other than a monster. I think we're o.k.. She actually called me to get together."

"That's great."

"Yeah. She'll be the one leaving in a few weeks. I can't say I'm happy about that, but I guess it's her turn and..." He stifles a yawn. "...I'm going to try to see as much of her as I can before she goes."

We don't say much more. After tossing the pizza box out and brushing our teeth in companionable silence (lucky I had an extra from my last dentist appointment), we return to bed. I watch John fall asleep, tracing the scorpion on his shoulder with a new awareness of what it means, what he has survived. I soon follow, sleeping warm and safe in his presence.

But it is the next morning that we begin to realize the fullness of what we have. Waking in the first silver light of dawn to feel John hard and insistent against my back side as his sleep heavy hands slide over my body, his breath hot on my neck. The utter relaxation of the waking melds with proprietary ease of the taking and we fold ourselves into one another. Cradled and surrounded and filled by him, his strong body on mine, his arm wrapped under my shoulders as his fingers clumsily trace the lines of my face, his breath hot on my lips. We move together gently, my hips instinctively rising to meet his as I take him in, enclosing every sweet inch of him in my warmth, my hands running over his body and through his hair. Feeling every flex of muscle, hearing his breath grow ragged as he brings his right leg up to drive into me harder, finding that sweet rhythm between us that sends us both over the edge to something soft and pure and primal flowing between us.

Like waking in Eden, a quiet moment of beholding one another in wonder, as we are, simply and fully.

Until swept along by the river of sensation between our bodies. John tries to hold back, watching me as the burning spark of sweet friction he created explodes in lava-likes waves of heat that reach to my fingertips. He follows a moment later, the rhythmic pulses of his climax in time with the ripples of my own as his muscles tense under my palms, digging his fingers into my skin as buries his face in my neck with a gasp.

We hold each other in stillness as the fire abates and our breath falls back into our own rhythms. Our scents, the weight of his body, the texture of his warm skin under my hands, the look of affection and contentment in his blue eyes as they flutter closed. Nothing is said, nothing needs to be. He smiles in possessive pleasure at my little whimper of deprivation as he withdraws, and sprawls out on the bed to snooze like a great sated cat.

Most women treasure to vulnerability of their men when they are asleep, but John looks no more or less vulnerable to me now than he always does. I wonder if that is because I see less or more of him when he is awake? John. Just John. And all that entails.

I savor the happy ache in my chest as I delicately trace the ridge of his eyebrow, the plain of his cheek, before I slide out of the bed to visit the bathroom. After smiling at the fingerprint bruises on my hips, I pick up our clothes from the floor, tossing mine in the hamper and folding his. As I pick up his jeans, his wallet drops to the floor with a paper, folded into a small rectangle. I would have just put it back with the rest, except the handwriting is extremely familiar.

It's mine.

I sit on the edge of the bed as I unfold a photocopy of the page I tore out of my journal weeks ago:

_Bombarded by illumination_

_Racked with knowledge_

_We forget…_

_Not all regions are charted_

_Not all hearts are known_

_I want to explore you_

_The fresh zephyrs of your space_

_The warm closeness of your arms _

_The bedrock of your being, immobile, eternal_

_Yet ever-changing in the light_

_I want to stand in the voice of your vibrant stillness_

_I want to dance like the sun on the surface of the rivers_

_That run so lively and sure in your eyes_

_And then as the day fades_

_And pale blue stars dot your velvet skies_

_I want to shelter in you_

_Curl up with you as man and woman_

_The firelight playing over the warmth of your skin_

_As we cast shadows by the hearthfire_

_Yours,_

_~K._

It's rippled with dried moisture and the corners of the folds are wearing through.

As I slide back into bed next to him, John rolls over on his side and pulls me into his arms, the length of his strong body against me, his legs entwined with mine, resting a heavy arm on my waist as the fingertips of his other hand lightly strokes my shoulder. I sigh in contentment, kissing his chest as he kisses my forehead.

"I like coming home to you," he whispers.

"I like you coming home to me."

"So we'll do it again?"

"Yeah."

~Fin~

_Thank you all for your generous time and attention. _


	11. Epilogue of Explanation

Not so much an epilogue as an explanation for those unfamiliar with the show. I know there are some, especially in the U.S., who have not seen it yet.

At the end of the first series of "Strike Back", John Porter is seen escaping from Afghanistan into Iran with proof that the CIA has been colluding with a local warlord, providing him with weapons and intel, in order to set up a stable, Pro-U.S. power in the region prior to pulling out. The two major players in this scheme were Sharq, the Afghan warlord with a very modern, corporate/mobster approach to gaining power, and Arlington, the CIA Liaison in London who had been harrying Section 20 and plotting behind their backs throughout the episode(s). He was the CIA's the point man for the deal with Sharq.

My story begins a few weeks after John Porter has returned to London with the intel. John got home from Afghanistan/Iran, MI6 took some time debriefing him, and he and Alex were invited to go in this trip by an old friend, Greg Randall, who was also my character's instructor. Somehow, Arlington learned of it.

Sharq was a pragmatist with his own system of gaining power. It was slow, but an effective way of consolidating a very stable power base. He did not need the information and weapons he was getting from the CIA in that deal to survive and be a powerful player in the Western Asian landscape, which was all he was interested in. He was willing to exploit the opportunity when it presented itself, but he wasn't going to be devastated if it fell through. I saw Sharq as a man who knows the wisdom in being ambitious but not too ambitious, and having a secure fall-back position.

Arlington did not know that wisdom. He had his ego wrapped up in his career and his career wrapped up in that deal, and because of that he was a little emotionally unstable. He was essentially the "Ollie North" of that situation, the man on point that would have been made to take the fall if that information became public. He's the one that would have been dragged before a senate committee hearing. I imagined MI6 was considering what to do with the intel, if they should go public or use it to bend the CIA over a barrel. Arlington was moving to protect his own butt if they decided to go public by eliminating the one witness (John) as well as trying to take out Sharq, who had threatened to blackmail him.

Since these were private hits and not government sanctions, he was trying to do it in a way that would not look like a hit, which is why the assassin (Robert) kept trying to use indirect means to take John out rather than just pulling him aside and shooting him in the head.

But Sharq sent his own agent who got to Arlington first.

Though it would have been *very* interesting/cool to write a story in which Sharq's agent and John Porter had to work together.

The assassin, of course, was Robert the retired U.S. Navy (Seal) from the _Elissa_ who "disappeared" in Jamaica. He was detained and interrogated by the JDF and MI6. How much his wife Jane knew of his activities? Well, I can let the readers speculate whether he went it alone, or they were a husband and wife team. I threw the character Paul in as a little red herring.

John's showdown with the intelligence officer who utterly screwed him over (as he describes in my text) is also shown at the end of the series. It was an unusual and very emotionally aware way of ending a journey of redemption in the action genre and really cemented the character of John Porter as something more than an action hero. It made him into a dramatic character.

I hope that this makes things a little clearer for people who have not seen the show and that everyone has enjoyed my story. (I've gone back and polished things up a little bit, fixed the typos and whatnot I did not catch the 4th and 5th times 'round, added a few small brushstrokes to make it more vibrant.) I have definitely enjoyed writing it and learned a great deal from the experience. Thanks again for the kind gifts of your time and attention.


	12. For the Love of Sailing: A Supplement

One of my readers pointed out that the use of sailing terms in my story is a bit much for someone who is not familiar with sailing. I did make an effort to go light on the terms as well as explain the terms as briefly as possible when they cropped up, using just enough to immerse the reader in the world without turning the story into a manual on sailing. But I can also understand where it is still a little overwhelming for some.

(And no one should feel bad about getting a bit lost in the sailing terms. I got lost the first time I read an Aubrey-Maturin novel. So many people did, someone wrote an entire book of terms and historical articles to help readers called _Sea of Words_.)

For all the flaws in the story, I can't say I am exactly eager to delve back into it in order to restructure, so I hope readers will forgive me if I put a glossary of terms here at the end.

I tried to post a link to the picture of the ship the _John Paul Jones_ was based on, but doesn't seem to allow that.

**Foward **is the front of the ship, the **bow** area. The** focs'l **is the interior of that area.** Aft** or **Stern** is the back of the ship. If you are looking toward the bow of the ship, left is **Port**, right is **Starboard.**

I think I explained the **bowsprit **and **headrig** pretty well in the text. The buildings on deck (from forward to back) are:

The **focs'l hatch** which is in front of the **foremast** (the first mast). This is just a cover/doorway for a ladder/very steep stairway, with a small platform in the middle, into the bunk area in the bow of the ship. This where my character and Alex sleep.

Immediately behind the foremast is a big hydraulic winch for lowering scientific equipment. On top of that is the **sail rack** which is where extra sails are stored and students would often gather during the day when they were not on watch, studying, or in their bunks.

Attached to the winch/sail rack (with the air vents on top) is **wetlab** which is where the scientific sampling and studies are done as well as where the instrumentation that catalogs depth, salinity, temperature, etc. of the water is. There is also a stairway/ladder inside the wetlab into the **main cabin** directly below The main cabin contains the **galley** and dining area which is lined with bunks along the sides and a set of books shelves ("the library") along the back wall.

Galley = Kitchen

While it does not come up in the story, I will mention for interest's sake that the dining tables are gimbaled, allowing them to swing back and forth so that the motion of the ship is NOT transferred through to the table top and the top of the table stays level so your dishes stay in place rather than sliding all over onto the floor. It seems like the table is moving, but in fact the ship is (and you are) moving in relation to it. The table is staying still. Believe it or not, after a couple days you don't even think about it anymore.

Though elbows on the table in that dining environment can have disastrous effects.

Then there is the **mainmast**. The second building behind the mainmast is the **Doghouse**. This is sort of the "control room", where the maps, radio, radar, GPS, lighting control, computers with stellar mapping software, etc. are. There is a stairway/ladder inside doghouse to the aft part of the ship which houses the bunks for the captain, the mates, and the engineer. It also leads to the **engine room** and the **computer lab**.

Connecting all three areas below decks are short narrow corridors, only wide enough to allow one person to walk straight forward. There are also heavy steel **bulkhead doors** between each section that can be closed and sealed in the event of flooding /ship sinking to keep the water from rushing between the sections below decks.

**Heads** are the bathrooms. **Bunks or "racks" **are the bunk beds everyone sleeps in. One of the less pleasant jobs of the engineer is serving as the ship's plumber. I spared John that.

(Below that interior deck, there is a third deck in the very bottom of the ship which is storage and the engine itself.)

Then lastly up top you have the **quarter deck**, which is where the **binnacle** (which holds the all important **compass**), and the **wheel** is. The captain's cabin (and John's) is directly below the quarter deck, and there is a skylight between the compass binnacle and a railing that is usually open so the captain can keep an ear on what is going on deck (and get some fresh air).

(Very, very lasty there is a bit jutting out the back that is called the **boomkin**.)

The _John Paul Jones_ is a **Brigantine**. Now popular belief is that ship classes are named by size, and you would be partly right in believing that, but ship classifications are an extremely subtle art combining a number of factors including size, type of propulsion, type of use, etc. but most importantly the **rigging**: The masts and the types of sails and how they are hung from the masts. (And if you think that is confusing, in the Royal Navy of the 18th century, a ship could change class depending on the rank of its commanding officer. A full Captain could never be seen commanding a sloop. So the instant he took command, what was a sloop became a brig.)

A Brigantine is two mast-ed vessel with **square sails** on just the first/forward mast (or foremast), with the rest of the sails are **fore and aft**.

**Square sails** are exactly that: Sails that are square, hung from the **yardarms **(the horizontal poles crossing the masts) to catch the wind coming from behind the vessel. These sails can be angled slightly to catch the wind better by pulling ropes attached to the ends of the yard arms called **braces**. This is a fun bit. The braces on the "John Paul Jones" are strung through holes in the hull called **hawses**, so to angle the yardarms (which are big, heavy, and quite solidly attached to the mast) one team of sailors has to sit down on the deck and pull ("haul") on one side of the braces (with another sailor taking up and tying off the slack), while another sailor is one the other side releasing the tension slowly so no ropes get tangled.

And not getting the ropes tangled is a very high priority onboard ship because a tangled knot will get hauled up and you end up having to climb up a mast and out onto a yard arm in the dark, which the gentleman Kevin is based on had to do on my trip, to get it untangled. That's if it is within reach. If it is not, you might have to cut the entire sail down and re-rig it. Sailing a tall ship is very much a team activity involving a great deal of coordination, attentiveness, and effort. It's fun, it's challenging, but it's not a vacation pleasure cruise.

Common sense would tell you that a ship sails fastest with a wind directly behind it, and to a certain extent this is true, but if you rigged a vessel with all square sails, then a ship is kind of stuck only sailing in the direction of the wind and life just doesn't work that way. In order to better harness winds from different directions to get the ship where it needs to go, a ship uses **fore and aft sails**: Triangular sails that are slung along the centerline of the vessel. These sails catch wind coming from the sides of the vessel and can more easily be shifted from one side or another. A ship like a brigantine which has mostly fore and aft sails actually sails fastest not when the wind is directly behind it, but when the wind is coming from behind and to the side.

Now for a little "sailing physics". **Raked masts** (or **Raking**) refers to the angle of the mast to the deck. You notice they do not stand straight up and down. They are angled slightly aft or backwards. Not only do raked masts look cool, but that angle backward allows the mast to take more pressure forward on the sails. Think about as if someone was pushing you from behind. If you are standing straight up and down, you can be pushed over pretty easily, but if you are leaning back into their hands, it's much harder. In fact, your feet may slide forward before they manage to push you over, which is exactly how the force of the wind is transferred into the hull of the ship through the water. So the masts and sails can take more pressure from the wind and more of that force is used to push forward when the masts are angled like that.

This brings us to **points of sail**. Standing in the middle of a ship, each direction the wind comes from relative to the ship has its own term. A brigantine like the _Jones_ sails best on a **broad reach**, when the wind is coming from one of the rear quarters (sides).

**Heaving to**, bringing the ship to a standstill, involves **backing the sails**, or angling them so that the wind is pushing the ship backward, while angling the rudder of the ship so that the hull wants to move forwards. Pushing the ship both forward and back at the same time so that it just stops. Then you can have a **swim call**, as shown in the text, do maintenance, or whatever you may need to stop a ship to do.

**Center of force/effort**, which is mentioned in passing, is where the wind is exerting the most force, the most power, on the rigging. That is controlled by what sails are put up. If you put all the sails in the front up, then the wind is pushing the most on the bow of the ship and can actually push it down in the water which slows the ship down. Ditto if you put all your rear sails up. Ideally in a perfect world, one should keep the center of force toward the center of the vessel (though there are vagaries of haul design,weight distribution, etc. that may alter that slightly from vessel to vessel. Some ships may actually sail better with the center of force shifted slight front or back rather than smack in the middle).

Now to learn the ropes, at least a little bit. The actual physical act of sailing is all about ropes. There are two major sets of ropes in the rigging: **Fixed or standing rigging** and **running rigging**. I think those terms are pretty self explanatory. Standing rigging (which attaches the masts, yards, and spars to the hull) doesn't move, running rigging (which moves the sails) does.

Standing rigging is then broken up into two groups: **Stays** and **shrouds**.

The **stays** are the fixed ropes (now metal cable in most ships) that attach and stabilize a mast from bow to stern. They are strung along the center line of the ship stabilizing the masts so they do not fall forwards or backwards.

People on the bow watch on the ship I sailed with attached their safety harness to the fore-stay, which ran from the top of the foremast to the bow of the ship. That way if they slipped or where knocked off, they were attached to standing rigging and would just hang over the side. The problem is if you need to put up or "**set**" (taking down a sail is called "**striking**" it) the foresail which runs up the forestay at night, the person on bow watch needed to notified so they would unclip lest they got dragged up with the sail. (And I did have a scary moment where one time they started to set the sail in the dark without telling me and I ended up getting dragged up a bit. "Hey! **HEY!**")

The **shrouds** are the fixed cables/ropes that attach and stabilize a mast from side to side. When you see people climbing up the "netting looking stuff" on either side of a mast, they are climbing up the shrouds. (The little ladder-like ropes between the shrouds that let people climb up them are called "**rat lines**")

Of the **running rigging** there are three main groups of ropes (and on a ship, they are actually not referred to as "ropes", but "**lines**"): Halyards, downhauls, and sheets. Every sail has these in one form or another.

A **halyard** (think "haul yard") is for pulling a sail up. When a sail is deployed, the halyard will tied off, but most of it will be neatly coiled on deck to allow it to run freely when you take the sail down.

A **downhau**l pulls the sail down when you strike that sail. When you set the sail, this needs to be released so that it runs freely. When the sail is in/not being used, both it's downhaul and halyard are coiled and hung from assigned points on the rail or the mast.

A **sheet** pulls the corner of a sail to one side or another, allowing the crew to angle it to the wind properly. (The term "three sheets to the wind" comes from the idea of these lines flying loose, meaning you have no control over the sail.)

On to a favorite topic of mine: Navigation.

The **heading** is the direction you are sailing recorded in 360 degrees on the compass which is kept right in front of the wheel. You steer by the compass after the captain gives you a heading. _"Turn 85 degrees East."_ The little pedestal with houses and protects the compass (because it is the single most import piece of navigation equipment on a ship) is called a **binnacle** (but when talking to modern sailors, I found this term is becoming archaic). A **bearing** is the compass reading of the ship in relation to a specific object like a lighthouse or other known/mapped landmark.

The sea is big. I mean really big. I mean bigger than that road trip you took in college big. A 135 foot ship in the middle of the ocean is a tiny lizard in the middle of the Sahara. There are no signs and once you sail out of sight of land (**blue water sailing**), no land marks to tell you where you are. There are three main ways to keep track of where you are and where you are going which ships do frequently. We did it every hour.

Almost all ships have **GPS** these days, but no one with half a brain relies on solely on a piece of highly refined equipment in a rough environment like the ocean. (And during our trip, the GPS was kept covered so we would practice our navigation techniques.)

The oldest and most simple method is called **dead reckoning**. Starting from your last known position (or "**fix**"), you calculate where you are by how fast you are moving and in what heading/direction you moved. Not the most accurate, but if you have nothing else, it's good enough. Our postion on the map was plotted hourly by dead reckoning, which was then verified and corrected by other methods like **celestial/stellar navigation**.

I mention working with a **sextant**. What a sextant does is measure the angle of a celestial body to the horizon. You have to have a completely clean horizon for the measurement to be accurate, so these are only used at sea. They are very delicate instruments, so they must be treated with great care. They are also very expensive, so you have to have it tied to your wrist whenever it is out of its case lest one fumble and *sploosh*. There's 800$ sinking to the bottom of the sea.

And a reeeeealy unhappy captain glaring at you from the quarter deck.

Taking a measurement is called "**taking a sight**" or "**shooting**" the object (sort of like shooting a camera I guess). Sextants have different light filters so that during the day you can shoot the sun to determine if it has reached the highest point in the sky, or **nautical noon**. Using this measurement, you can determine your **latitude** (where you are in the ocean on a north/south axis).

When the stars and the horizon are both visible at dawn and dusk, you can measure the angle of known stars and the moon to the horizon to get latitude and combine those measurements with an accurate clock to get **longitude** (where you are in the ocean on an east/west axis). The history of navigation and the discovery of these techniques is really a fascinating one, sort of like the Moon Race of the 18th century.

Translating these angle measurements into a location on a map involves spherical trigonometry. Navigators used to have to work all this out by hand, but now a days we use a computer program to make the calculations to give us the coordinates. (Thank the Gods. It took me five tries to get through college algebra with a "c.")

Then we take those coordinates and **plot** (place them) them on a map by crossing the line created by the latitude measurement with the line created by the longitude measurement. Using a sextant can be as accurate as four miles off the GPS. In the middle of a massively huge ocean, that's pretty damn good.

If you are sailing along a coast and have an accurate map of the landmarks, you can use the compass to take bearing (the angle of the location of the ship to a known landmark). After taking three or more bearings, you can cross the lines of these angles to triangulate your position.

At night we would use RADAR to keep clear of the coast and other vessels.

Another method of navigation that is fading out of usage is the use of radio signals like LORAN (LOng Range Aid to Navigation), but that has all but been replaced by GPS.

On to a little of the daily life.

A **Watch **is a shift of sailors. You are assigned to a watch when you come on board and work with those people through the entire voyage. (Some ships may mix up watches after a while, but that did not happen with my trip.) On my ship, each watch was 5 or 6 people, plus a sailing mate in charge of the deck and a science mate in charge of the lab. The ship I sailed on had three watches on a four shift rotation. So for example (if I can remember this correctly, after a while the actual time just sort of got lost, you just knew you were on or off):

12:00 pm to 6:30 pm - A watch  
6:30 pm to 01:00 am - B watch  
01:00 am to 05:30 am - C watch  
05:30 am to 12:00 pm - A watch

And the cycle starts all over again.

A **Mate** in nautical terms is essentially an officer. In seniority they lead the watch and report to the captain. They are labeled in order: 1st mate (leading A watch) is second in command, 2nd mate (leading B watch) is third in command, and so on.

For the non-Americans, "tossing cookies" is a somewhat childish slang for throwing up, which a LOT of people do their first couple days at sea. In a class of 22, I was one of four people who never threw up. I'm inordinately proud of that fact.

Fresh water onboard ship is at a premium. We were lucky that the ship were sailing in had a desalinization system that filtered sea water into fresh. But even then, we were only allowed to take a fresh water shower once every three days. Desalination systems are expensive, so not all ships have them. Between bathing, modern sailors fall back on baby wipes to keep the worst of body odor down. In six weeks I went through two or three packs, plus facial cleansing wipes. Yes, we wore the same clothes a couple days in a row and laundry was only done occasionally in ten gallon bucket with whatever soap was on hand, usually biodegradable dish soap. We then hung our clothes, including our underwear, out to dry where it would not get in anyone's way. At one point part of the rail of the quarter deck was lined with my bras.

**Field day**, which is mentioned but not shown, was a time once a week when the ship was heaved to and **everything** on board was cleaned, from stem to stern, from the pots and pans in the galley, to the bathrooms, to the floors, to the engine room. It's funny, you are surrounded by water, but ships do become dirty and sailors have to stay on top of it to keep from mold growing or things rotting or all kind of nastiness.

Field days suck, there is just no other way for it other than to say that it is the worst part of sailing. So captains try to make it fun by playing music or giving out candy (we were a school ship) or other little benes that the sailors don't get the rest of the week.

The **Steward** is the ship's cook. Always be nice to the steward. Three meals at day were served by the galley. Watches eat in shifts so that the watch coming on eats first and then the watch coming off eats. Members of each watch take turns working the galley assisting in preparing meals or washing dishes. Food is stored below the galley in the main hold, which has a refrigerator and a freezer which essetially are nothing but big cold boxes. If you think your refrigerator gets disorganized, try making sense of a refrigerator that has been holding the food for 30 people after a month. Spelunking expeditions were often required to find things. The galley would also bring an afternoon snack up in deck, usually something simple like sliced fruit or vegetables with peanut butter or sometimes something more elaborate like a stew pot full of smoothie. There was a coffee maker in the main cabin, so coffee and tea was also always available, though late at night you had to do so very quietly in the dark because there were people sleeping in the bunks lining the main cabin.

They did sometimes string a fishing line off the stern of the ship to supplement our diet with a couple mahi–mahi and another fish which I don't remember the name of. It's interesting/sad, they really do lose their vibrant colours after they have been yanked out of the water. The stress I guess. The crew brought them up on deck, clubbed them to death, filleted them right there, and had them for dinner. I'm a vegetarian so I didn't take part in this practice in RL, though I'm sure as a character John would have enjoyed it.

If I think of anything else I will add it, but I think that covers everything I mentioned in the text.

(And I appologize in advance for the inevitable typos. I just whipped this off.)


End file.
